


Parting the Clouds 7 -- The Offer

by Derin



Series: Parting the Clouds [7]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 26,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2823644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Animorphs are tired. They've been fighting this battle a long time. So when, during a Yeerk Pool scouting mission gone bad, a mysterious being shows up and says it can take them and their families somewhere away from the yeerks to live in peace, it seems like a dream come true. </p>
<p>But things aren't that simple. What their supposed benefactor knows and what they claim to know doesn't really add up. For another, the Animorphs are the Earth's only defense from the yeerks until the andalite reinforcements arrive. Can they really doom all of humanity just to save the people they care about? But is it fair to keep putting the people they care about in danger by continuing their little war?</p>
<p>If this wasn't bad enough, changes in Rachel's family life are making it hard for her to handle the war. Can the Animorphs even keep up the fight if they lose their brave, protective frontliner? And in the midst of all this chaos, what can Cassie do to help her best friend?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to JustAnotherGhostwriter, who has generously loaned her awesome betaing skills and general support to this project from start to finish and without whom this would almost certainly not exist (and would certainly be much worse), and CompanionofaTimelord, as well as my innumerable temporary beta readers. Also thanks to Featherquillpen, who came up with the series title.

My name is Cassie, and I don't care who knows it; I love the circus.

I mean, I'd prefer not to be dragged along as a fifth wheel with Rachel and her sisters' bi-weekly outing with their dad, but free tickets, right? We watched some jugglers, some tightrope walkers, and some ponies walking along on their hind legs. I watched Rachel interact with her sisters Jordan and Sara, and swung between being sort of sad and really grateful that my own parents had decided to stop at one. I was watching Sara scrabble on the floor for something she'd dropped when Rachel nudged me with a wink, pointing at the centre ring.

Elephants.

African elephants, like Rachel's battle morph. They pranced in a circle. Reared up. High-fived small children in the front row. Rachel watched with a dreamy, slightly manic look on her face.

“Uh, Rachel?”

“Relax, I'm not actually going to go down there and join them,” she whispered.

“... Okay then.”

I relaxed and focused back on the circus. There were a lot of things happening, and I don't think anybody was paying as close attention to the elephants as we were. Even if they were, they may have paid no mind to the long stick in the elephant trainer's hand. Cattle prod. I don't think anybody else in the audience really knew how an elephant in pain behaved anyway, so if they did watch the trainer occasionally brush the prod against his elephants, they probably expected them to feel a slight tingle.

It wasn't a slight tingle.

“That little – ”

“Not now, Rachel!” I grabbed her arm, probably a little tighter than necessary. It hurt to see somebody treat an animal like that. It was one thing to keep animals for things like circuses, if they were happy and well looked after, but it was another thing entirely to torture them for human amusement. Still, there was nothing we could do that would help the elephants. Not right then.

“He's hurting them right now!”

“What are you going to do, charge down there? This is a crowded tent and that ring is full of people doing dangerous things with dangerous objects.”

Rachel didn't answer, and she didn't relax. But she didn't charge down into the ring either.

At the end of the act, the elephant trainer gave a short speech about how much he loved his animals, how great elephants were, and how important mutual trust and respect was in animal circus acts. Even I wanted to march down there and smack him by that point. But we remained in our seats, and waited for the show to finish. Then Rachel found an excuse to lose her father for a few minutes and dragged me towards the background tents by the hand.

“Wait, where are we going?” I asked, pulling my wrist free.

“I'm going to give that trainer a piece of my mind.”

“That won't help anything! I'll tell my mom about the elephants. She'll know which animal rights group to contact. A couple of girls yelling at him won't make any difference.”

“It won't do any harm. And it'll make me feel better. Stand guard, okay?” She'd led me to the elephants by this point. Four of them, each secured to a post in the ground by a chain. Not that that could actually hold an elephant.

“Jake is going to read you the riot act over this!” I hissed. “And why do you need a guard?”

“Read me the riot act? What does that even mean?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “It's something my dad says all the time. I was trying to sound adult and responsible.”

“Well, responsibly stand guard.” By then, she'd already found a dark corner and pulled off her outer clothing. (All of the Animorphs were getting pretty good at undressing really fast.) She started morphing. Her fingers sank into her hand and melded into big, club-like feet; her skin became thick and leathery.

“Rachel!” I hissed. “What the hell?!” She just grinned at me as her nose pushed out of her face in a long, muscular tube. Her mouth was in no condition to speak with, but her eyes told me that I had no hope of convincing her to stop. I stood lookout instead. “Jake is going to hate this,” I muttered.

Within a couple of minutes, a fifth African elephant stood awkwardly with the circus elephants, trying to look like it belonged. A minute or so later, the trainer wandered over. I ducked behind a tent. It was getting dark, and he clearly had something on his mind. So much so that he didn't even notice Rachel until she wrapped her trunk around him and lifted him high into the air.

“What the...? Put me down!” The man struggled uselessly in Rachel's grip. She lifted him to eye height. “Wait, you're not one of my elephants!”

<Hello there,> Rachel said. She was smart enough not to broadcast her thought-speak publically, but she kept me in the mental loop.

"What the . . . . Who? Who said that? I'm hearing voices!"

<Me,> Rachel replied. <I said it. I am from the International Elephant Police. We have had some complaints about you. >

The International Elephant Police? Really?

"This is crazy! This is crazy! What are you? Is this some sort of a joke?"

Rachel squeezed him a little tighter. Just enough so he couldn't really breathe very well.

<Now, listen to me. Because I could just as easily squeeze you out like a tube of toothpaste. So pay attention. You have been using cattle prods on your elephants. That is a no-no.>

"But..." he gasped. "They ... are ... my ... property!"

That really wasn't a smart thing to say. Rachel extended her trunk a little and held him right over the tip of her left tusk. Like a worm about to be placed on fishing hook. <With one twitch of my trunk I can make you a shish kebab. Now are you going to listen to me?>

"Yes! Yes! I'm listening," he said. "I am listening very closely."

<No more cattle prods. No more pain of any kind. Do you understand me?>

"Y-y-y-yes."

<Because I'll be watching. And if you ever, _ever_ hurt an elephant again . . . ever. . . I'll come back for you. And I will squeeze you till you pop like an overcooked hot dog. Do you understand me?>

"Y-y-y-yes."

<Can you fly?>

"What? Can I fly? No. No, of course not."

<I'll bet you can.>

With a sudden toss of her head and a deft twist of her trunk, she sent him flying. He landed safely atop a tent. About, oh, twenty feet away.

"Now can we go home?" I asked.


	2. Chapter 2

“You threw the guy into the air?" Jake asked. "Wasn't that maybe just a little unnecessary?"

"No. He made me mad," Rachel said. She crossed her arms and glared at him.

We were strolling through the woods near my house, the day after circus; the four of us human Animorphs and Tobias, who was hopping through the branches above us. Red-tailed hawks have pretty good hearing, but he still had to stay pretty close to keep up with the conversation. Being a hawk must be alienating.

“Cassie, Marco, back me up,” Jake said. “That was a stupid thing to do, right?”

“What, blow her cover to some random circus trainer?” Marco said. “No, that sounds safe and sensible, like everything we use these powers for. What are we going to do today, rampage through a military base? Wait, I know, turn into tapeworms and infiltrate a Controller's intestines.”

Rachel screwed up her nose and shot Marco a disgusted look just as Jake shot me a pleading one. I shared a glance with Rachel. We'd sort of left the part about me being there out of the story. Rachel didn't care if Jake thought she was irresponsible, but it was a conversation I kind of wanted to avoid.

“She didn't blow her cover,” I pointed out. “I doubt he's a Controller unless yeerks have pools scattered across the planet because it's a travelling circus. And even if he is, he's gonna think what, that andalites are taking an interest in animal welfare?”

“Andalites would've come up with something better than 'elephant police',” Marco added.

“Oh yeah?” Rachel asked. “Like what?”

Marco opened his mouth to answer, but spotted the andalite galloping towards us. “Ax! Great, we're all here, let's get down to business.”

“What business?” Rachel grumbled. “Why have you dragged us all out here?”

Marco waited for Ax to come into hearing range before answering her. “The reason that we, by which I mean Tobias and I, have dragged you all out here, as you put it, is simple.” He couldn't keep the smug grin from creeping across his face. “My fellow Animorphs... and visiting alien... we've found a way into the yeerk pool.”

The yeerk pool.

I couldn't suppress a shudder. None of us had fond memories of that place. We'd all nearly died there. Jake had watched his brother, nearly free, turn around and run back to the pool, giving up his freedom, to buy us an escape. I'd been dragged down the pier, certain that I was facing slavery or death. And Tobias... Tobias had lost his human form there.

“An entrance to the yeerk pool?” Rachel echoed, sounding slightly stunned. “Where? How?”

"Ax is the only one who wasn't there for our little vacation in the yeerk pool," Marco said. "As the rest of you know, the yeerk pool is in a huge underground cavern. It's practically a small city down there. It's under our school, but it's so big that it also runs beneath the fire station, a couple of gas stations, and most of the mall."

Ax nodded. <Yeerk pools are generally large and elaborate. They are an important part of yeerk life. The centers of their lives, really. The pools are, for the yeerks, what forests and meadows are to andalites. >

“Or what the mall is to humans,” Rachel agreed. I opened my mouth to challenge that comparison, but Marco was already continuing.

"Tobias and I have been working out a pattern of surveillance," Marco went on. "For the last week, we've followed our very favorite human-Controller, Assistant Principal Chapman, everywhere we can. Tobias tracks him from the air. Then I follow him when he goes into a building."

"Why didn't you let the rest of us in on this?" Rachel demanded.

Marco shrugged. "It was a two-person job, that's all."

Jake frowned at him in annoyance. But I understood. Not very long ago, we'd had Jake tied up in a shack in the woods with a yeerk in his own head. He very nearly turned us all in and couldn't do a thing to stop himself. He attacked most of us at least once, and nearly had to watch himself kill Tobias. None of us wanted to deal with yeerks more than we had to, but Jake had special reasons to avoid them. Marco had been letting him rest. He still could’ve told the rest of us, but I guess that would count as leaving Jake out, which would be worse.

"So?" Rachel prompted.

"So what?" Marco answered.

"So where is this entrance to the yeerk pool? Duh."

"Well, I was hoping to amaze and entertain you all with the whole story of our brilliant detective work, but the short answer is - in a dressing room at The Gap. In the mall. That's the entrance. People go in, looking like they're going to try on clothes, and they never come out."

<At least, they don't come out through The Gap.> Tobias added. <They come out through the movie theater. When the crowd leaves the movie at the end of the show, there are always more people leaving than went in. >

"In through The Gap, out through the multiplex." Marco laughed. "Are these yeerks on top of popular American culture, or what?"

"Good job," Jake admitted grudgingly. "The question is, now what do we do?"

<Attack!> Ax said instantly.

“My suggestion of charging into a military base was _sarcastic_ ,” Marco pointed out slowly.

"We tried that once," I explained to Ax. "We didn't exactly win. There were dozens, possibly hundreds, of hork-bajir and taxxons down there. And human-Controllers. And he was there . . . Visser Three. That's when Tobias was trapped in a morph. Like I said, we didn't exactly win."

"We got hammered," Rachel agreed. "Ax, you know I'm usually all for going on the attack, but the yeerk pool is just too big."

<A warrior is judged by the power of his enemies,> Ax said stubbornly.

“Well maybe a warrior should be judged by his effectiveness at doing his job,” I snapped. I didn't understand how Ax could keep on spouting nonsense like that before every battle. All this honour and glory talk was frankly a little frightening. A warrior should be honourable, but fighting for honour or glory was downright dangerous. We were fighting to protect our planet, not to uphold some elitist fighting code.

"Attacking the yeerk pool is out," Rachel muttered, completely ignoring my outburst. Then she brightened. "Hey, Ax? What can you tell us about the Kandrona?"

<The Kandrona is a miniature version of the yeerks' home sun. It emits Kandrona rays, which concentrate in the yeerk pools. It is what nourishes the yeerks. That is why the yeerks must swim in their natural state in the yeerk pool every three days - they need Kandrona rays. >

"So their real weakness is not the pool itself, but this Kandrona," Jake said, catching on. "This miniature sun."

<But the Kandrona may be many miles away from the yeerk pool.> Ax explained. <The Kandrona rays may be beamed to the pool from almost anywhere. So, although I am in favour of attacking the yeerk pool, we should not do it expecting to find the Kandrona there. >

"But what if we didn't attack the yeerk pool?” Rachel asked. “What if we just spied it out? We might find out where the Kandrona is."

Marco laughed. "That's more like the Rachel I know. You were starting to worry me there. You were sounding so sensible."

"How big is a Kandrona?" Jake wondered.

<It would depend on how many pools it had to support. It might be as large as Cassie's barn. It might be the size of one of your human cars.>

"The size of a car? Surely a bunch of all-American kids like us could manage to wreck a car," Marco joked.

"How much would it hurt the yeerks?" Rachel asked. "That's the question. Is it worth running the risk of going down there again? Down to the yeerk pool?"

We all looked at Ax.

<It would depend. If they have a spare Kandrona, it wouldn't hurt them very much. In any case, they have one aboard their mother ship, so we would not wipe them out entirely. >

We all sagged with disappointment.

<However, it would not be practical for the yeerks to shuttle their human-Controllers back and forth to the mother ship to keep them alive. >

"So what would they do?" Marco wondered. "How would Visser Three react?"

"Visser Three is totally ruthless," Rachel said. "He would save as many as he could. But he'd have to let the rest die."

<Yes,> Ax agreed.

<It would be a very serious blow. They would survive, but they would be weakened. >

"We'd have to find this Kandrona thing first," I reminded everyone. "And wherever it is, it will be guarded."

Right then I guess we all realized we were going to do it. We were going back to the yeerk pool.

Jake shook his head slowly. "Down to the yeerk pool again. I still have nightmares about the first time."

"Yeah," Marco agreed. “Done that.”

“We weren't prepared last time,” I said. “We know what to expect now. And we're more experienced.” But even I didn't believe myself. It was impossible to be prepared for that place. We didn't have the power to take on all the yeerk forces down there. And our experience basically amounted to being lucky enough to escape alive a lot.

Hopefully, that luck would keep holding out.

The others didn't respond. We all just kind of stood there in grim silence.

<I am not very good at understanding human emotions.> Ax said. <But you all seem afraid. And your fear is beginning to scare me.>

"Good," Marco said. "I don't know if you andalites believe in places like heaven and hell. But let me just tell you - the yeerk pool is definitely not heaven."


	3. Chapter 3

Rachel and I saw each other at school the next day, before first period. Generally, we Animorphs didn't hang out together at school. It wasn't likely that anybody would notice a group if kids had suddenly started hanging out about the time that the andalite bandits showed up, especially since only four of us went to school, but it was still possible. So we kept our old social networks; I hung out with Rachel a lot, and Jake and Marco spoke often, but our two groups didn't cross paths much.

It occurred to me that if Jake and I were dating, we could easily merge the groups together with no suspicion.

“Cassie? Are you blushing? What happened?”

“What? No.” Curse Rachel and her incredible perception for changes in skin tone. “What's up?”

Rachel bit her lip and looked down. I could tell it wasn't a yeerk thing. Yeerk things left a very particular haunted look in a person's eyes. “My dad came over for dinner last night.”

“What? Why? Did he see something at the circus – ?”

“No! No, he... he's taking a job in another town. A good job. With lots of money. It's... pretty far away.” She hesitated. “He wants me to go with him.”

I really, really wish that I could say that my first thought was based on sympathy for Rachel. I wish I could say that I immediately hugged her and told her it would be okay and felt sad for her. But I try to be as honest with myself as I can. And so I'll be honest with you, too.

My first thought was, _Are we going to be down an Animorph? Can we handle missions without her?_

My second thought was, _If she goes, will there be a yeerk pool where she is? If not, it means her father is free. It means she can tell him. She could establish a new group of human rebels, prepared ones, who can form a front line if the yeerks spread, and she can liason with us when she comes back here to see her mom and sisters._

My third thought was, _Poor Rachel._

And then I hugged her.

“What are you going to do?” I asked her quietly.

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't know. I mean, it... it could be a nice fresh start, you know? But I can't run away. I can't abandon you all.”

“You wouldn't be abandoning us.”

“Yes, I would. And I wouldn't be able to protect Jordan and Sara and Mom. But...”

I lived with both my parents. I couldn't really understand the decision that she was making. “Promise me you'll make the decision that's best for you and what you want in life.”

“Cassie, I...”

“Promise me.”

“Alright, I promise.”

“Good.” I released her. “Now we need to get going, or we're going to be late for class.”

She smiled at me, like she was okay. But I knew that she wasn't.

Unfortunately, I had no idea how to fix it.


	4. Chapter 4

We were supposed to meet at the mall after school, but not right away. Jake had a family thing. With a few hours to kill, I went to the tree with “Cassie + Jake” carved into it, counted three trees across, and dug up my little box.

I made a copy of my List of Known Controllers. Then I hopped on a bus headed to Marco's neighbourhood.

I had already suspected that Tobias was spending a lot of his time doing surveillance for us. He probably felt a bit left out, like he wasn't really pulling his weight since getting trapped. Which was ridiculous. His flying experience, lack of time limit and lack of other commitments was a huge advantage to the cause, and I'd watched him fly straight at the eyes of armed Controllers to protect the rest of us, healing factor or no. But I was glad our pair of eyes in the sky was keeping tabs on Assistant Principal Chapman, especially since I sort of felt responsible for Melissa's safety nowadays. And this yeerk pool entrance opened up a whole range of new possibilities. I didn't think we'd really find the Kandrona, not if it could work over the distances that Ax said. But we might learn something else interesting. We might recognise more Controllers, or find some other kind of weakness, or learn new plans. And Ax, with his alien knowledge, might be able to point out something that we'd miss on our own.

The bus crawled along. I wish I could've flown. But an osprey flying through town with a piece of paper clutched in its talons would be ridiculously suspicious. Unless... I rolled the edge of the paper between my fingers. There might be a way; I made a mental note to try it out later.

Marco's new place was much nicer than his old one. Somewhere in the middle of our alien-fighting, Marco's dad had started to get himself back together and had gone back to work. He was some kind of physicist for the government, I think. Marco had given us his new address but I hadn't really been paying attention to his personal life. I probably should pay more attention to my teammates' personal lives. The thing with Rachel's dad had come out of nowhere, for instance.

Marco seemed a lot less bothered by me seeing his new house. He let me right in. “What's up, Cassie?”

His father was in the living room. I pulled a random excuse from my mental list of handy excuses. “You said I could come around and borrow that CD?”

“Right, yeah... it's upstairs. Come on.” Marco lead me to his room and firmly closed the door behind us before giving me a puzzled look. “Is there a problem?”

“No, no problem. I just wanted to talk to you before the mission because messing around with paper mid-mission might cause problems. I guess I should be talking to Tobias about this, but his living situation isn't really ideal for...” I trailed off at Marco's confused expression. “Here.”

Marco took the list from me and gave it a quick glance. “Suzie Kinten? Really? I was gonna ask her out this week!”

Rachel or Jake would've come back with a sarcastic remark about Marco's dating prospects. I'm not Rachel or Jake. “If you've been following Controllers to yeerk pool entrances, you must've learned a few more names. I think we need to share intel. We should all be sharing intel, actually.”

“Yeah. You're right.” He grabbed a pen and started copying my list in uneven, loopy handwriting. “You haven't been leaving this – ”

“Lying around? I'm not an idiot. Can you pass this on to Jake? You know, when you can without looking suspicious.”

“Sure. You shared with Rachel yet?”

I bit my lip. “I went to you first because you and Tobias probably have the most to add. Rachel's next on my list.” I didn't want to talk to Rachel until she'd made her decision about moving away. I didn't want to push her.

“Alright then.” He started scrawling names on the bottom of my list.

“Say, Marco?”

“Hmm?”

“How do you feel about this whole yeerk pool mission?”

“Like I'm about to wet myself and throw up at the same time. Why?”

“Nothing.”

“Is this the part where you go all emotional peacekeeper on me and tell me to be brave?”

I blinked. “Do I need to tell you to be brave?”

“It probably wouldn't hurt.”

I nodded. “Whatever we find out down there will let us hurt the yeerks. Maybe quite badly. This mission brings us one step closer to ending this war, it helps us protect the people we love, the planet we love. Knowledge helps us make better decisions, it keeps us safe. After tonight, we'll be safer.”

“Those of us who live.”

“We've done it before. And there were less of us.”

“Yeah, well, our luck has to run out sooner or later.”

I could ask directly. Maybe that would work. “You seem less... reluctant than you used to. I mean, you keep telling us this plan is suicidal, but it's been awhile since you've threatened to quit the Animorphs.”

“Has it?” Marco grinned. “I'm slipping. I knew I should've put it in my diary. 'Friday, tell everyone they're going to die and threaten to quit'.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Changed my mind? Nothing changed my mind. This is still stupid. It's just... always something about Tom, or helping Ax, or... or making sure you guys don't get hurt. I mean, what if I quit, and Jake died on the next mission?” He shook his head. “I don't like this, but I'm just getting tired of telling the rest of you how stupid you are all the time.”

I wasn't buying it. Marco was fighting for something. Come to think of it, he seemed to find his new fire about the time his dad got his life together. It wasn't that his dad was in the Sharing or anything; Marco would've told us that. Maybe with him more active, Marco had just decided he needed to protect what little family he had left. Or that if he did die in combat, maybe his father would eventually be ok. It was a depressing thought.

But the important thing was, Marco was definitely on board with the whole animorphs thing.

I just wished I could be so sure about Rachel.


	5. Chapter 5

Right from the start, Rachel had been one of the three I was sure about. Rachel, Tobias, me. It was Jake and Marco who'd been the wild cards, at least until we learned about Tom. I'd never thought I'd have to worry about my best friend staying on board. She wanted a fresh start, I knew that. She didn't want to fight any more. But she didn't want to abandon us.

It was terrible timing. We were all still shaken up after the Jake thing. Some of the things Temrash had told me still stung, sometimes I woke thinking I could feel Jake's fingers in my hair, pushing my head into that table... Rachel and I had never talked about the things he'd said, and we knew that Jake hadn't really been saying them. But they must weigh on her mind as well.

What should I do? How should I convince her? What should I convince her of? In theory, having an out-of-town Animorph could be good backup. But we'd lose our strongest fighter. And... and I'd lose my best friend.

She'd pretend otherwise. But Rachel made friends easily. The people in her new town would, in time, become more important, and we'd only talk about mission stuff. And I'd be alone.

I'd have the other Animorphs. Comrades-in-arms, who would hang around because we needed to work together to save the planet. Not really the same. But this wasn't about me. I had to remember that my own opinions would be biased because I didn't want to lose Rachel. I had to keep that in mind and not let it affect anything too much. It wasn't my decision, anyway. Perhaps the best thing to do was to stay out of it, let her decide, and then plan based on that.

Of course, an Animorph on the outside could give us one very important advantage – the ability to get people like Tom out. Well, maybe not Tom; not at first. We'd have to start with less important Controllers. Random, low-ranking ones that wouldn't act as a big neon sign pointing to the Animorphs. But trafficking freed Controllers out of the city to Rachel, where she could help set them up with new names, might be a good first step. High-risk. But it might be worth it.

Not important right now. The important thing was scouting out the yeerk pool. I didn't think we'd find this Kandrona, but we might find something.

I settled under Rachel's collar as she browsed the clothing racks in The Gap. I was in fly morph, as was Marco. Jake and Ax were cockroaches, hidden in her pocket. Tobias, of course, wouldn't be able to come.

<What's taking so long?> Jake asked.

<Sending Rachel in to shop might not have been the best plan,> I replied. <Just pick something and let's go.>

If Rachel could have responded, she probably would've started lecturing me on my fashion sense. Instead, she moved to the next rack. Eventually she found a couple of shirts and steered us to the change rooms. While Rachel undressed, the rest of us demorphed and remorphed one by one. (You don't ever want to become a fly in a room full of mirrors. Trust me on this one.) Rachel would have to leave her clothes behind, which might look weird, but we figured that the staff would put it down to theft or something.

Once Rachel joined us in roach morph, we headed out into the little hall that connected the change rooms.

<How long before she arrives, Ax?>

We were waiting for a specific Controller whose routine Tobias and Marco had learned. <Approximately seven of your minutes until this Controller arrives, Prince Jake.>

<I'm not... okay, so that would put you in morph for what, fifteen?>

<Twelve.> Ax had morphed first. We figured that if anybody needed to demorph due to the time limit, the andalite was the best one to do it.

We waited. About seven minutes later, the dressing room door opened.

<I love how punctual this girl is,> Marco said. <You just don't see that kind of consideration any more.>

A fly can't really see an entire human all at once. They're too big, and sight isn't very interesting for a fly anyway. But a massive shape moved, there was a soft snap, and... something... pushed toward us from the back wall. The mirror, the dressing room mirror must be swinging forward.

<Time to go!> Jake said. I landed on the girl's belt. She walked forward into a musty, dark space, and snapped the mirror back into place behind her.

<We're in,> Jake said.

<Goody,> Marco replied.

<Head count,> Jake announced. <Who's here?>

One by one, we announced ourselves. Everyone was in.

The entrance in The Gap was closer to the pool than the school entrance had been. I could tell, because once our guide opened a second, apparently soundproofed door, there was nothing indistinct about the screams and wails of despair echoing up the hallway. They were close.

The tunnel, like the one in the school, was cut right out of the earth and stone. Apart from the occasional metal brace shoring it up, there were no embellishments. The floor sloped downward, a ramp of packed earth. Would a wolf be able to smell the difference between different types of soil? Or a dog, maybe? Jake had a dog morph. Could we learn who might be Controllers based on the tunnel dirt left on their shoes and clothing?

I felt, more than saw, the cavern of the yeerk pool open up around us. We detached from our guide.

<I wish I could see more clearly,> Ax said. <I wish I could see all that is going on. >

<No. You don't,> Rachel told him.

<Remember,> Jake warned, <this is a scout mission. We're not here to fight.>

We didn't need telling. The last time we'd started a fight in the yeerk pool, we'd barely escaped alive, and Tobias...

<Time, Ax?> Jake asked.

<Twenty-eight of your minutes have passed.>

<You know, Ax, they're your minutes now, too.> Marco said, just to make conversation. <I mean, we are all here together on good old Earth where we only have one type of minute. >

<Okay, now what?> I asked. <We've used up half an hour.> And fly and roach morphs, stealthy as they might be, weren't the best scouts.

<Okay,> Jake said, <you guys remember there were buildings all around the edge of the cavern, set back from the yeerk pool? Most are probably storage. Some may be generators and air purifiers. But some may be offices, control rooms, or even hold the Kandrona itself. We need to check out some of those buildings.>

Good plan. Learning the layout of the yeerk pool could be very helpful in the future. Although it did bother me a little that Jake was so interested. How often was he planning on dragging us down here?

<I wish we could have found a bug morph with better eyes.> Rachel said. <How are we going to even find these buildings? I can't see more than a couple of feet in front of me. >

<Don't need to.> I pointed out. <We can smell. They have humans down here. I don't know about hork-bajir and taxxons, but if there are humans down here, they must eat somewhere. And I swear I smell french fries.>

<Go for the fries!> Jake said with a laugh. We charged toward the smell, two flies and three roaches. Just ahead, a wall loomed. It was easy enough to find a crack. A roach can slide through a crack no thicker than a quarter. Marco and I had to take a brief detour to find a doorway.

We emerged into brilliant light and an assault of sounds and smells.

<So. Where do you think we are?> Marco asked.

<This looks like linoleum under us,> Rachel said. <Dirty linoleum. I feel a lot of vibrations - lots of feet, I'm guessing. And voices. Too many for me to make sense of them. >

<I smell humans.> Ax confirmed.

<Humans don't smell.> Rachel said, only half-joking.

<Oh, humans smell,> Ax argued. <It's not a bad smell. Sort of like an animal we have back on my planet called a _flaar_.  >

<So we have french fries and humans.> Marco said. <Are you telling me we have reached the yeerk pool McDonald's?>

<If it's some kind of lunchroom or something, it would be a good place to listen in on conversations,> I said. <Maybe we can get closer. Crawl up under a table. We should be able to - >

Suddenly a shadow fell over us. Something huge was overhead, blocking out the harsh fluorescent light.

<Now, that. . . that is not a human smell.> Ax said.

<I smell it, too.> Rachel said. <It's familiar. I don't like it. Something . . . I've smelled it before . ., it's ... I can't get my human memory and my roach senses together. It smells like . . .>

Then I realised. <Taxxon!> I said. <Look. That tree-looking thing up there. I think it's a taxxon leg!>

<Oh, gross. I hate those things.> Rachel moaned.

<LOOK OUT!>

Hurtling down from the fluorescent sky at incredible speed came something like a bright red whip.

I darted upward. It was too fast!

The red whip slapped the ground all around me. It fell over me like an awful, wet quilt. Some thing like glue oozed around me, seeping under my wings and gumming up my legs.

<Nooo!> somebody screamed.

<I'm trapped!> Marco cried.

I was lifted up off the ground. My wings were glued to the red whip, and I was hurtling through space. I caught a wild glimpse of the others, stuck to the red whip just like me. <What's happening?!> I cried.

<It's the taxxon.> Ax said. <I think he's about to consume us!>

We were stuck to the frog-like tongue of the taxxon, as the evil creature slurped his tongue back down his throat.


	6. Chapter 6

Well. It looked like that was it. Down the throat of a taxxon.

As I struggled to free myself, one litany played over and over again in the back of my mind. _Taxxons can't eat insects. That makes no sense. They need too much energy. Insects are nothing to them. Taxxons can't eat insects._ But it really wasn't the time to worry about alien biology. We had to get free, but there was no time, no time!

And then...

And then... everything, everywhere, stopped.

The sticky red whip of the Taxxon's tongue stopped moving.

But it was more than that. There were no sounds. There were no smells, because the air itself had stopped moving. Then, without meaning to, I began to demorph.

<What's going on?> Rachel asked asked.

<I'm demorphing.> I reported. <But it isn't me doing it.> Already, I could see that the same thing was happening to the others.

<Are we dead? Is this some kind of hallucination?> Rachel asked, sounding on-edge.

<If it is, I'm having it, too.> Jake said.

I swiftly grew larger and larger. My center pair of fly legs dwindled and disappeared. My other legs swelled and grew skin.

I fell from the Taxxon's tongue to the ground, too large and heavy to be stuck any longer.

Toes appeared. Fingers appeared. My true human eyes opened.

I looked around, dazed and disoriented. The others were all there. We were all human again, barefoot and dressed in our skin-tight morphing outfits. Ax was back in his Andalite body, just adding to the general weirdness of the scene.

We were inside a building. As we had guessed, it was a lunchroom. There was a kitchen to one side. There were a dozen long tables down the middle of the room. People sat at the tables, eating. Only . . . they weren't eating. They were holding forks. They were looking down at plates of food. They were getting ready to speak. They were holding mugs of coffee.

But no one was moving.

No one was breathing.

The steam rising from the mugs of coffee was frozen and still as a photograph.

"Okay. I'm ready to wake up now," Marco said. "This dream is getting weird." He said it half-seriously. If this was a dream, it was actually a lot nicer than some of the others I'd been having.

"Look," Rachel said. "Hork-bajir."

Two hork-bajir were standing by the door. I had never seen one standing still before. Even frozen in place they were frightening - seven feet of knife-edged arms, legs, head, and tail. Salad Shooters on legs, as Marco said. Walking razor blades.

And then there was the taxxon. The one who had been about to eat us. It was a monstrously big centipede, as big around as a concrete sewer pipe. It had a round, red mouth at the very top of its worm body. The long, red whip of a tongue stuck out and hung in the air.

"I have an idea," Marco said. "Even if this is a dream... let's get OUT of here!"

"Definitely," Rachel agreed.

"MOVE!" Jake said loudly.

We ran for the door of the lunchroom. Out into the vast, intimidating openness of the cavern. Outside, the same freeze had occurred. The surface of the yeerk pool was still. The humans and hork-bajir who were involuntary hosts were frozen in their cages, screaming and crying and shouting without a sound or a movement. Marco looked at the cages and traded a glance with Rachel. I wondered what they were thinking. Wondering how many cages they could tear open before physics reasserted itself, probably.

On the infestation pier, a woman was bent low over the water, held down by a hork-bajir. A yeerk was halfway into her ear. She was crying. Her tears were motionless on her cheeks.

Then I saw something moving. One single thing in all that eerie stillness.

A boy. He was tall, a little gangly. He had hair that looked as if it had never been combed.

Rachel whispered. "Look! It's Tobias!"

The others all turned to see.

Tobias shrugged his human shoulders. He held up his hands to stare at his own fingers. "It _is_ me." he said, sounding like he doubted it. "My old body. Here."

Rachel ran to him.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!" he yelled. He jumped back and suddenly threw his arms up and down. He was flapping, trying to get away. Trying to fly. She'd scared him by rushing at him. There aren't many situations for hawks in which something coming at you fast is a good thing.

"Sorry," he whispered, embarrassed. "Sorry."

She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "Tobias, what's going on?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I was flying . . . then suddenly, I was here. Like this."

<Time has stopped.> Ax said. <For everyone but us. I can feel it.> That just raised questions about how his ability to keep time actually worked. But... I could feel it, too, now that he'd explained what I was feeling. We felt... stuck, like a tiny knot in a piece of thread. Unless I was imagining it. Humans were good at inventing sensations they couldn't actually feel. But it didn't feel good.

"Something is very, very wrong," I warned unnecessarily.

"Is this some trick of Visser Three's?"

<This is not yeerk technology, I can tell you that.> Ax said. <This is far beyond them. Far beyond us andalites, as well.>

 _What?_ I thought. _Humility? From an andalite?_

I smirked at the thought for a moment before coming to the chilling realisation that it wasn't mine.

It wasn't thoughtspeak, exactly; at least, not the kind that Ax used, that Elfangor had used. It seemed to originate from in my own mind, but from everywhere else as well, and it wasn't my, well, my own mental voice. It was something else. Like somebody had just dropped a package in my brain and let me unwrap it.

Everyone else seemed as unnerved as I was.

"Yaaahhh!" Marco yelped. I froze, keeping my pose nonthreatening, as reflexes developed from years of working with hurting animals kicked in. Jake stepped backwards, towards me and Marco. Marco glanced between us and Rachel and Tobias, still several feet away, with a calculating expression. Rachel spun around, looking for the source, ready to fight if necessary.

 _No, Rachel,_ the alien thoughts continued (and as I thought it I realised that they weren't just alien as in not mine; they were very clearly not human). _There is no threat._

"It knows your name!" Tobias hissed.

I glanced at Ax. He had gone rigid. He wasn't frozen like all the world around us, he was afraid. He was shaking.

 _Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill has begun to guess what I am_ , I realised. Then I took a second to untangle the first-person pronoun.

<Ellimist!> Ax said. There was fear in his tone, the same sort of fear he'd expressed the first time he met Visser Three. That couldn't be good.

_Do not be afraid. I will appear in a physical form you can understand_ , I assured myself.  _Why didn't you do that in the first place?_ I wondered irritably, with my own thoughts, before telling myself to mentally shut up – I probably didn't want to offend this thing, and it might very well be able to read other people's minds as well as think in them.

The air directly in front of me ... no, not in front, behind. Beside. Around. I can't explain it. The air just opened up. As if there were a door in nothingness. As if air were solid and ... it is just impossible to explain. The air opened. He appeared.

He was humanoid. Two arms, two legs, a head where a human head would be. His skin was glowing blue, as if he were a lightbulb that had been painted over so that light still shone from him.

He seemed like an old man, but with a force of energy that was definitely not frail. His hair was long and white. His ears were swept up into points. His eyes were black holes that seemed to be full of stars.

Do not be afraid. Form you can understand. Glowing blue pointy-eared alien. Apparently this guy had learned how to talk to humans from watching science fiction shows. That wasn't reassuring.

"I am an Ellimist," he said, speaking with an actual voice, "as your andalite friend guessed."

Ax was shaking so badly he looked like he might fall down.

"Be at peace, Andalite," the Ellimist said. "Look at your human friends. They do not fear me." That wasn't entirely correct, but I wasn't about to correct the time-controlling magical alien who terrified the only one among us who knew anything about aliens.

<They don't know what you are.> Ax managed to say.

The Ellimist smiled. "Neither do you. All you know are the fairy stories your people tell to children."

"Well, how about if someone tells us who and what you are?" Rachel said. She was unnerved, and when Rachel is unnerved she becomes brash. I tried to shoot her a warning look, but I don't think she saw me.

The Ellimist looked at her. "You cannot begin to understand what I am."

<They are all-powerful.> Ax said simply. <They can cross a million light-years in a single instant. They can make entire worlds disappear. They can stop time itself. >

"This one doesn't look all that powerful," Marco said skeptically, as if we weren't standing around in some kind of time bubble and not dying despite the fact that immovable air should be unbreathable.

<Don't be a fool.> Ax snapped. <That's not his body. He has no body. He is ... everywhere at once. Inside your head. Inside this planet. Inside the fabric of space and time. >

"So why are you here?" Jake asked the Ellimist. "Why all of this? Why did you bring Tobias here?"

"Obviously, you saw right through our morphs," Marco added. "You knew who we were. You even know our names. You brought us all here together. Why?"

"Because you must decide," the Ellimist said.

"Decide what?" Rachel demanded.

"The fate of your race," the Ellimist said. "The fate of the human race."

“That's all?" Marco snapped. "Just the fate of the human race? Don't you have something more challenging for us?"

But the Ellimist wasn't paying attention to Marco. "We do not interfere in the private affairs of other beings," he said. "But when they are in danger of becoming extinct, we step in to save a few members. We love life. All life, but especially sentient life forms, like _Homo sapiens_. Your species. This is a very beautiful planet. A priceless work of art."

"You've obviously never seen our school," Marco said, still giddily trying to joke.

Suddenly, without warning, the Ellimist did it again. He opened space.

And I understood.


	7. Chapter 7

We were no longer standing in the yeerk pool. We were no longer underground at all. We were underwater. Deep underwater. But the water did not seem to touch my skin. And when I breathed, there was air. Still, I felt fear tingle the back of my neck.

We stood - me, Rachel, Jake, Marco, Ax, and Tobias . . . Tobias, in his own human body – in the middle of an ocean. Suspended in the water, but dry. The Ellimist could no longer be seen. We were floating above a coral reef. And everything was moving again.

All around us, fish swam by in swift-darting schools. Fish in every color and shape, reflecting the dappled sunlight from above. Sharks prowled. Stingrays seemed to fly. Squid pulsated. Crabs scuttled across fabulous extrusions of coral. Tuna as big as sheep drifted past. Swift, grinning dolphins raced by in pursuit of their next meal.

 _It's lovely_ , I realised, or at least The Ellimist did. The Ellimist's voice once more seemed to grow from deep within my own heart.

_Lovely._

And then, as quickly as we had been plunged into the ocean, we were drifting above the waving golden grass of the African savannah. A pride of lions lazed in the sun below us, looking sleepily content. Wildebeest and gazelles and impalas grazed, then broke into wild, springing, bouncing races that forced you to smile at the sheer energy of it all. There were hyenas, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, baboons, zebras. Hawks and eagles and buzzards wheeled overhead.

_Look at it._

Then, in an instant, deep jungle. A lithe jaguar prowled while monkeys chattered in the tree canopy above. Snakes as long as a person slithered across tree branches. The air reeked of the heavy perfume of a million flowers. We heard the sounds of frogs, insects, monkeys, and wild, screaming birds.

Then the Ellimist showed us the human race. We flew, invisible, through the steel-and-glass canyons of New York City. We drifted above villages at the edges of jungle rivers. We watched a rock concert in Rio de Janeiro, and a political meeting in Seoul, and a soccer game in Durban, and an open-air market in the Philippines.

_Humans. Crude. Primitive,_ I reasoned,  _but capable of understanding._

Suddenly, all the movement stopped. We were staring at a picture. A painting. I'd seen the painting somewhere before. It was a wild swirl of color. A painting of purple flowers. Irises, I think, although I'm no big expert on flowers. The artist had seen the beauty of those flowers and captured some small bit of it on canvas.

_Capable of understanding,_ he thought. And I understood.

Then, without warning, we were back in the yeerk pool. The images were all gone. We were in the land of despair once again. Surrounded by frozen images of horror. The Ellimist - or at least the body he had made for us to look at – reappeared.

"That was a nice tour," Rachel said. "But what's it all about?"

“He's a conservationalist,” I explained quietly. “When natural habitats disappear, people intervene to try to stop species from going extinct. Relocation programs, zoos, hunting bans, laws to stop deforestation. That sort of thing. That's why he's here.”

The Ellimist gave a single nod. "Humans are an endangered species. Soon you will disappear."

No one said anything.

"The yeerk race is also sentient," the Ellimist continued. "And they are technologically more advanced than you. They will continue to infest the human race. The andalites will try to stop them, but they will fail. The yeerks will win. And soon, the only humans left will be what you call human-Controllers."

I had stopped breathing. The way he said it... it was like you couldn't argue. Like you couldn't say anything. He spoke every word with utter and complete certainty.

He wasn't guessing. He knew.

He knew that we would lose.

We had been terrified a few moments before, as the Taxxon prepared to swallow us. I had been afraid for my own life and the lives of my friends. Now, as the yeerk pool hung suspended in time, I felt a deeper fear. My head was still swimming from all the images the Ellimist had shown us.

"Why come here just to tell us we're dead meat?" Rachel asked gruffly. She didn't get it.

"We have an offer for you," the Ellimist said. "You see, we can save a small sample of the human race. We have a planet where we would relocate you. You . . . some members of your family. A few others, chosen to get a good genetic sampling. As well as a few non-human Earth species that are of special interest to us. We have a planet set aside for you. It will seem very much like Earth. You would be free to evolve naturally, as your species should."

I nodded. I was familiar with the plan. Humans had done it for hundreds of species before.

"This is insane," Marco said. "It's like Noah's ark. The yeerk flood is coming. Load up the boat."

"No," Tobias said, staring at the Ellimist. "It's a zoo. That's what he has for us - a zoo."

The Ellimist said, "We do not impose our will on sentient species. The decision is yours. I have chosen you to decide, because only you, of all free humans, know what is happening. You must decide - to stay on Earth and fight a battle you are certain to lose. Or to leave this planet behind and form part of a new colony of humans."

"How long do we have to decide?" Jake asked.

"You must decide now," the Ellimist said.

"What?" Rachel yelled. "What? What are you up to? What do you mean, we have to decide now?"

That was kind of unreasonable, making us choose when we were in the middle of getting eaten. I would've resented him for it, if I hadn't also used scare tactics to trap and help wounded animals before.

"If you decide the answer is yes, you, and some of those you are close to, will be instantly taken to your new home. If the answer is no, I will return everything to the way it was when I interrupted time."

"You mean we're back in roach morph headed down that taxxon's throat?" Rachel asked.

"Everything as it was," the Ellimist said. "Our purpose is not to interfere."

I looked at Tobias. His face showed nothing. He might as well have been observing the Elimist with his normal hawk eyes.

"And our friend Tobias?" I asked.

"Everything as it was," the Ellimist repeated.

"Oh, that's real fair," Marco said. "You ask us this just as we're about to be some taxxon's lunch?"

"This is ridiculous," Jake said angrily. "You can't just tell us we have to make a decision like this. We are not the ones who should be deciding this. I mean, maybe you're trying to do the right thing for us, but this is nuts."

<Ellimists are not interested in what is fair.> Ax said. <Ellimists give you a choice that is no choice at all. Then they can claim that they do not interfere. They will pretend it was a human decision.>

I could see why that made my friends mad. But he probably just wanted to save humanity, so he was trying to force a yes out of us. Of course, he might also be lying to us, and just wanted to get rid of us so we couldn't fight the yeerks. We didn't really have enough information to judge. Ax had more information than the rest of us, and Ax didn't trust him one bit.

"I vote no," Tobias said, with sharp, angry defiance. "You're using me. You're using my friends' affection for me as a tool. And I'm not going for it."

"Let's think this over a little first, Tobias," I said reasonably. "We can't make a snap decision just because we're upset. This decision is for the whole human race. Do you understand that? He's talking about humanity becoming extinct."

"Tobias, you personally have a lot to lose," Jake reminded him. "If we say no, you're right back in your hawk body."

"So we have two votes no, Tobias and Rachel, one vote yes from Cassie," Marco said, without even waiting for Rachel to vote. I did feel a little guilty about wanting to pull out when Tobias was ready to sacrifice everything for the fight. But my goal wasn't to kill all the yeerks. My goal was to save humanity from them. And if the Ellimist could give us that...

"What this character wants us to do is run away," Rachel said. "He wants us to abandon our people and our planet just to save ourselves and the people we care about personally."

I felt a blush creeping up my cheeks. Fortunately, nobody was looking at me.

<This is a decision for humans.> Ax said. <I fight the yeerks. I follow Prince Jake. But I don't trust this Ellimist, however great his power.>

"Guys, I know how you feel," I said, "But think about this. We won't even get out of this yeerk pool alive. And when we die, then what chance do humans have against the yeerks? This isn't about running away. Here, we choose whether the yeerks get most people, or whether the yeerks get everyone. Do we really want to sacrifice our species because we're upset at how we were approached when we were given the chance to save it?"

Jake and Marco had still not voted. When you fight alongside someone for long enough, you get a feel for their body language. With thought-speak, we'd never needed a proper system of signals, but I could tell that they were planning something. They were looking back toward the building we had come from. And past the building, to what looked like a tall, circular column rising straight up to the rock ceiling of the cavern.

The column was a mix of steel and clear glass. Inside the column was a human-Controller, seemingly frozen in mid-air. She looked like she had been falling down the long tube. Or else flying up it.

A dropshaft! Like the one on the yeerk mother ship. But did it go up, as well as down? That was the question. Was the human-Controller in the shaft falling or rising?

Jake cocked an eyebrow at me. He looked back to the column, making sure I had noticed it. I squinted closely at the frozen Controller. She had shoulder-length hair. If she were falling, it should have been swept upward. It was down around her neck.

Well, that basically cemented the vote. We'd seen a way out of the Ellimist's 'trap', and nothing I could say would convince the rest to walk into it with me.

"Mr. Ellimist," Marco said, "thanks for your offer. But I don't think so. I don't think I want to be in your zoo. And I don't like being muscled like this. I'm glad you like Earth, but we'll take care of it the best way we can."

“That's three against,” I said sadly. Which meant it didn't matter how Jake was going to vote. I doubt he would've backed me up anyway. Still, I had to keep trying. "You all know I take care of lots of sick animals. They are always afraid of me, even though I am trying to help them. Are we being brave saying no? Or are we just being foolish, resisting someone who is trying to save us?"

"You know what bothers me?" Jake told the Ellimist. "You say the human race will lose to the yeerks. But I don't believe you can tell the future. See, you don't know how we're going to vote. If you did, you wouldn't bother to be here, would you?" He looked around at each of us.

There could've been any number of reasons why the Ellimist had to make the offer. Maybe it was a political thing. But a vote was a vote, and it was five-to-one. (I counted Ax even though he said it was a human decision. After all, he knew the Ellimist better than we did.) Maybe the others understood something that I didn't. I shrugged. "If you guys vote to stay, I will, too."

Jake took my hand. "Mr. Ellimist, I guess you have your answer."

Instantly, we were back in our insect bodies.

_If you live, I will ask once more,_ the thought blossomed in my mind, as if I myself was coming to that decision.  _If you live._


	8. Chapter 8

The red whip of the taxxon's tongue held me glued down, helpless!

<Morph! Morph out!> Jake yelled in my head.

I was already morphing. Through the fear, I focused my mind on my own human body. Suddenly all around me went dark.

<We're inside the taxxon!> I yelled. Probably a good thing, hiding our morphing. It didn't seem like a good thing at the time.

<Focus on morphing!> Jake yelled. <We are busting out of here.>

A gush of stinging liquid, like a tidal wave, washed me from the sticky tongue. I tumbled blind and terrified through hot, viscous goo. But at the same time I could feel that I was growing. Everything was closing in around me. The bodies of the others were shoved against mine as we all grew out of our morphs. I felt the gut of the taxxon spasming as it tried to deal with this deadly growing meal.

My human lungs were growing back, and as they grew they began to need air. I was suffocating

<Air!> I heard Marco cry. <I can't breathe. >

<Just keep morphing.> Jake said. <We'll try and pop this worm open. >

<I have my tail again.> Ax said. <Should I - >

<YES!> Jake said. <Do it!>

The darkness around us split open suddenly. I caught a glimpse of Ax's scythe-like andalite tail slicing the taxxon open from the inside.

Air! Air rushed in. Stinking, foul, vile air, but air. Somehow, survival instinct overrode my dizzy, confused, air-starved brain, and I didn't rush straight out of the caustic taxxon innards. I reached out and grabbed human arms on either side of me, holding them back to make sure they got the message; we had to stay hidden until we were no longer human. I focused on the wolf inside me.

From beyond our shield of taxxon flesh, the noise of eating and casual chatter had been replaced by people hurrying away from a taxxon that was clearly in some kind of trouble and leaking fluids everywhere. Nobody seemed to think the situation was anything worth screaming about, but they were definitely getting out of the way. When Rachel's elephant morph got too big for the taxxon, I knew we were going to have a problem.

The acidic pain eased as thick fur grew over freshly healed skin. I was almost entirely wolf when Ax burst out of the dying taxxon with a little doglike shake to wick off some of the digestive juices. As I leapt out myself, I got a glimpse of him casually disposing of two more taxxons who had come to make a meal of ours.

Then the screaming began.

“Andalites!”

“Run!”

“Get them, or Visser Three will chew your bones!”

An alarm went off somewhere. Controllers crowded into the building. It was pretty easy to tell the Controllers from the voluntary-but-empty hosts. The Controllers were trying to point Dracon beams at us. The hosts were shielding themselves behind tables. A couple of them had found Dracon beams, but they weren't charging out at us. They seemed intent on just staying where they were and protecting each other. They were probably hoping we'd just ignore them. We did.

Slipping in taxxon guts, we made for the door. A hork-bajir near the door moved swiftly to cut us off. Ax swung his tail with blinding speed. It hit the hork-bajir's shoulder.

<Head for the dropshaft!> Marco cried as he burst out of the taxxon, as if we needed telling.

I looked around for Rachel, knowing her elephant bulk wouldn't fit through the door. She should just about be finishing her morph. A tiger tore its way through the tissue paper skin of the taxxon, snarling. Then another set of claws flashed, and a huge, brown, wet terror lumbered out after him. Its bellow shook the room.

"Grrooowwwrrrr!"

Rachel was no elephant.

She was a grizzly bear.


	9. Chapter 9

Grizzlies are a little different to most of our morphs. Wolves are, by nature, rather shy. Except for hunting and dominance fights, they prefer to avoid fighting. Tigers are a bit more dangerous, if only because they're very deadly, but it's not in their nature to go looking for a fight either. Elephants and gorillas are very peaceful animals. You have to go out of your way to make them mad to get a proper fight out of them.

Grizzlies are not like that. Grizzlies know their place in the food chain, and it is at the top. They'll attack anyone. The best way to protect yourself against a grizzly is to play dead and hope it gets bored and doesn't just decide to eat you.

But at that moment, there was no time to worry about Rachel's new morph. We darted through the door, skidded in blood, and circled around the building towards the dropshaft.

<We are trapped,> Ax reported neutrally. I looked past him. Jake and Marco had reached the dropshaft, a hundred feet away. Between us and them was a small army of human-Controllers and hork-bajir.

<Go, Jake. We'll be okay.>

Several of the Controllers began closing in on Jake and Marco. But most of them only had eyes for Ax. They could see that he was an andalite.

Suddenly, a pair of hork-bajir warriors rushed at us. Their bladed arms slashed the air. They came at us like a pair of chainsaws on high speed.

Ax struck!

But the hork-bajir were too fast.

<Aaaarrrhh!> There was a deep gash down Ax's flank. Already weakened from taxxon burns, he looked barely able to stand. He struck again and again, his scorpion tail almost invisible. The human-Controllers stayed prudently back, as much afraid of getting sliced and diced by the angry hork-bajir as by Ax. But more hork-bajir were rushing up, and Ax was losing ground.

<Rachel?> I said. <We gotta clear a path.>

Rachel didn't answer. Not in thought-speak, anyway. "Grrooowwwrrrr!" she roared. Then she charged straight into the throng of hork-bajir.

I used my smaller morph to dart under everybody's legs and come up beside Ax to defend his injured side. So long as we kept moving, nobody dared use Dracon beams; they'd only hit their own soldiers. Beyond the ring of hork-bajir, Animorphs were closing in on us; Jake and Marco forcing their way in from one side, and Rachel a red wall of death on the other, already soaked in blood. Some of it was her own, judging by her wounds. Ax and I pressed forward until we ran into Marco, who scooped Ax up like a large cat and turned back toward the dropshaft. Rachel joined us second after.

<Hey Rachel,> Marco quipped, <I like that look on – >

“RRRRAAAAAWRR!” Rachel swiped at Marco, slicing open his shoulder.

<Hey, what are – > he dodged a second swipe. <New plan, flee from Rachel!>

Rachel had already turned her attention to a hork-bajir that had swiped at her, but we weren't pushing our luck; we pressed back toward the dropshaft, Jake and I doing our best to clear a path while Marco shielded Ax with his bulk. Hork-bajir blood mingled with taxxon fluids to make a bitter concoction in my mouth as I tore at cutting arms and legs. Rachel was heading toward the dropshaft too, but slowed down by her apparent need to kill every single thing that attacked her. Marco, Ax and I were in the dropshaft before she got there. Jake darted in and started to rise just as she tried to slash at him.

<Rachel!> I called. <Rachel, you need to calm down!>

<Rachel, morph out,> Jake commanded. <Morph out. You're out of control! You are OUT of control! Morph!>

She wasn't listening. She kept clawing at the air above her, trying to reach Jake. Then, suddenly, she stopped. She began to demorph.

I let my own human features return as we rose. I'm not really sure how the dropshaft was lit, but we could clearly see the layers of rock on either side that had simply been drilled through to install it. Eventually, we hit dim, fading sunlight. I couldn't help laughing. Down in the yeerk pool, I had forgotten that it was daytime. I stepped off onto solid concrete. Ax was halfway to Northern harrier, skin and feathers spreading over his wounds. Jake clambered out, and then Rachel, looking dazed. Her normally perfect hair was soaked in blood.

I took her hand. "Careful," I said, glancing around. "We're okay. We're safe. We're... in an alley, I think." There was one of those little outdoor taps poking out of the ground. I lead her over to it, so that we could wash away the horror movie aspects of our appearance.

"Gotta get out of here,” Rachel muttered. “Yeerks will be watching."

"Yeah, they were," Marco said. He jerked his head over to the corner where two human-Controllers lay unconscious. He must've taken them out before I got to the top of the dropshaft.

“More will – ”

“I don't think they're that interested in chasing us after that little performance,” Marco said, but he was scanning the sky as he did. “Not up a narrow dropshaft, at least.” We were probably pretty safe from an aerial assault too, being in town, but the yeerks had risked landing at the construction site at least a couple of times, so that was no guarantee.

“Is everyone able to morph?” Jake asked. Feathers were already appearing on his face.

“I don't... I don't know,” Rachel said.

“Focus, Xena,” Marco said, more gently than I'd ever heard him speak to Rachel before. “You're just creeped out. You've done more morphing than this before.”

“You're right. I'm just tired is all. I...I never morphed the bear before. Didn't have time to get control. Sorry."

"It's okay, Rachel. That grizzly got us all out of there. But get some rest, huh?"

She nodded, and closed her eyes to focus.

“Why don't you guys go ahead?” I suggested. “I'll bus Rachel home.”

“We just busted out of the yeerk pool in morph,” Marco said, “nobody has any bus mon-- ” He stopped talking with a strangled sound as I pulled money out of my leotard. “Okay, how did you do that?”

“Same way we do clothes,” I explained. “I was just thinking, if we can trick the morphing process into thinking spandex is part of our body, why not paper? It's a bit harder and it took some practise, but it's doable.” I casually handed Rachel a couple of dollar bills as if it was nothing and turned my head to hide my grin.

“That is not fair, Cassie. You are not fair.”

<Morph, Marco,> Jake said. <We need to get out of here.>

“Right behind you, Fearless Leader.”

If Jake had had human eyes right then, I'm sure he would've rolled them. Fearless Leader.

None of us were fearless for even a minute any more.


	10. Chapter 10

The sky darkened as we strolled out of the alley, onto the almost deserted streets.

“Okay,” I asked Rachel, “what the hell happened in there?”

“Nothing. I just got a new morph and I didn't practise it enough.”

“You're taking this decision with your dad hard, aren't you?”

“This has nothing to do with that.”

“Doesn't it?”

“I needed a battle morph that could fit through doors and corridors. The elephant is sometimes a liability.” She glared at me. “You might consider doing the same thing. We are fighting aliens here, you know.”

I could feel my grip on her hand tightening. “This isn't about me.”

“It never is, is it, Cassie? The fact that I thought I needed a better battle morph is somehow a public discussion, but we can’t talk about the fact that you’re still trying to fight aliens in the body of a wolf.” She sighed at my frown. “Shouldn't we be talking about the more urgent matter of the time-controlling alien who wants to save our species?”

“Your issues are just as important as that.”

“No. No they're not.”

I shrugged. “I've known a lot of environmentalists, you know. Most of the animals in The Gardens are there as part of a breeding programme to save their species. When it comes to saving nature... the first thing you do is try to stop the environment from degrading. You make laws to stop deforestation, you change farming techniques, whatever. But there's a point where that stops working, and when that happens, the only way to save species is to take as many of them as you can somewhere safe.”

“I refuse to believe that we've reached that point. That we should just give up.”

“What we believe doesn't change what's true. And changing tactics isn't giving up.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I don't know yet. Give me time.”

“I don’t think we _have_ time.”

We reached the bus stop. There were other people about, so our conversation switched to schoolwork, which we were both falling behind on. We took the bus, and I bid farewell to Rachel at her front door.

Then I morphed Osprey, and went home. Home, where my two parents loved each other and… might have been aliens, but probably weren’t, and didn’t expect me to make impossible decisions. I was the only one, I realised, that had that. Rachel’s parents loved her but not each other. Marco’s mother was dead and he’d been trying to keep his dad together for years. Jake lived with the enemy, hiding behind the face of his enslaved brother. Ax was light years from home. And Tobias… Tobias had never had anyone.

Just me, with my parents and my animals. I wondered if any of the others had noticed that. I wondered if it ever made them hate me a little bit.

I liked to think of my friends somewhat more charitably than that, but to be honest, if I was in Rachel’s position and she was in mine? I’d hate me a little bit.

Too much information. I was going to need paper again.

The morning after our trip to the yeerk pool, I sat under the trees at the edge of the forest and frowned down at my notebook.

I wrote, _Ellimists_. That seemed a good place to start.

 _Can control time._ I stared at that for a moment, then crossed it out and wrote, _Can pause time_. _Ax says: exists everywhere, outside time and space._

_Prominent in andalite stories. Some kind of trickster entities??_

But they – or at least, this one – wanted to save us. Or so he claimed. I added, _Do Ellimists want to save us, or does this Ellimist want to save us?_ I knew nothing of his culture. His politics. Nothing on whether we could trust him.

But he had given us a choice. If he was going to trick us, why would he give us a choice?

I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. Scribbled down the bottom of the paper, _Why aren't all the yeerk pool entrances dropshafts? How can taxxons be insect eaters?_ before returning to the Ellimist problem.

Nope. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see what was turning the others so against the Ellimist's proposal. Unless they were holding on through sheer hope. I knew what that was like; it's how we'd kept going this long. But we'd done it because we had no choice. Because we had nothing else to hold onto.

I sighed, and placed my piece of paper in my rapidly filling box of war notes.

Was I running away?

We could protect ourselves, our families. Marco could keep his Dad safe, like he wanted. He'd refused. Jake could save Tom. He'd refused. Rachel could keep both her parents. She'd refused. Tobias could have his old body back. He'd refused. We could make Ax's return home a condition of our acceptance. Ax hadn't wanted to vote, but it was pretty clear what side he was on.

They must all think I was such a coward.

But I'd long ago accepted that I would do anything to protect my planet. Or as much of it as I could, anyway. If we agreed to the Ellimist's terms, I suppose that meant I'd failed, and badly. The yeerks would wipe out most life on the planet. The Ellimist had only promised to save a few species. But a few were better than none. The yeerks would save what they needed, regardless. The Ellimist might save something different. I'm sure they had different ideas of an acceptable human environment, at the very least.

What would our new home look like, if we accepted? There would probably be things like grass and food plants and animals, but would there be wild trees? Ants and butterflies? Pets? Exactly how far did the Ellimist's claim that our species would be allowed to evolve naturally go? So many other lifeforms influenced humanity...

Would we have modern technology, or be forced to adapt to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle? If that was the case, surely he would've targeted a less technological society than America. He wouldn't even have needed to mention the yeerks. Just find some starving people, if he wanted a breeding colony so badly. No, if he wanted us, he wanted people adapted to our technology.

But I didn't have time to daydream. I needed to get to school.


	11. Chapter 11

Rachel wasn't at school.

We'd planned to meet up in my barn in the afternoon. Jake and Marco arrived first, with Tobias swooping in almost immediately after. Normally Tobias arrived about 5 minutes after Jake. I strongly suspected he arrived early and just hid until Jake arrived, although I'm not sure why. Today he came in immediately and perched on top of an empty cage, much closer to us than his normal position in the rafters. It occurred to me that last night, he'd been pulled into our yeerk pool reconnaissance and one of the last things he'd heard before being teleported out again was me talking about how we were all definitely going to die. Then, of course, we hadn't exited at the theatre as planned. I assumed he did the house rounds afterwards, but he must still be pretty relieved that we were okay. Ax wasn't there; I hadn't expected him to be. He has to morph human to come to barn meetings, which he prefers not to do. And we were talking about the Ellimist's offer, which he didn't think was any of his business.

Rachel was the last to arrive. In a flagrant disregard of secrecy, she arrived barefoot, in her morphing outfit. Jake and I exchanged a glance.

"Hi, Rachel," Marco said, looking amused, but also a little wary. "What have you been up to? Or maybe I should ask, what have you been?"

Rachel glanced at me. I avoided her gaze by preparing to change a kestrel's wing-bandage. "Hey, Rachel," I said. "Give me a hand here, will you? I didn't see you at school today."

She held down the struggling bird as well as she could. Kestrels are small falcons, and they can be pretty fierce. Wings are really inconvenient places for bandages because they mean you can't restrain the bird properly. It tried to bite Rachel, but it was too weak to do any damage. I myself had become a lot more careless with animal bites since I'd acquired the ability to just heal them with morphing.

"I felt kind of sick this morning," Rachel said, "so I stayed home."

"But you felt better this afternoon, huh?" Jake said. "So much better that you decided to morph? How did you get here, just out of curiosity?"

"I flew. Is that okay with you?"

He glanced at me. Then at Marco. "That bear you morphed yesterday . . . you went to The Gardens and acquired that all on your own, didn't you?"

"No," she said, "I met that bear at the mall."

"Okay," Jake said. "And today you ditch school and end up morphing . . . whatever you morphed."

<An eagle.> Tobias said. <I saw a bald eagle riding the thermals this afternoon. I should have guessed. It was up for too long, acting like a buzzard. A real eagle would have perched after a while. >

"It's so nice knowing I have privacy," Rachel said sarcastically.

<That was about noon.> Tobias said. <lf you came here in eagle morph, that would be more than two hours. You must have demorphed, then morphed again. >

Jake looked at her sharply. "You spent the whole afternoon in morph?"

"Yes, Mother."

Jake jumped up and stood right in front of her, just inches between their faces. "Don't give me your sarcasm, Rachel. You are acting really weird. That's everyone's business, because if you do something stupid, we could all end up paying the price. You go and acquire a grizzly? Without backup? You could have been killed."

“If we go around ditching school, the yeerks will figure out our identities,” I added in a small voice.

"So what?" Rachel shot back. "You heard the Ellimist. We're doomed. It's going to be yeerks one, humans zero. We lose. So who cares about anything? Who cares if I skip school to go flying?”

Suddenly Jake just sagged. "I don't know, Rachel. I don't have any answers. I'm sick of trying to have answers. You decide. I don't want to argue with you. I don't know what your problem is, but you know what? You deal with it."

I've never seen Jake look so tired. One minute he was being strong, sensible Jake, leader of the Animorphs. And the next minute he looked exhausted. His eyes were red. He was blinking constantly. He looked like he was worn out just from breathing.

Only then did I realise that they didn't have some secret understanding that I didn't. They believed the Ellimist too; we were doomed. They were holding on through a sense of duty, to try to protect everyone even though failure was certain. They were willing to sacrifice everything because they believed that going down fighting and losing everything was better than settling for a very small success.

This sort of thing is why casinos make so much money.

"My dad wants me to move out of state with him," Rachel said.

Everyone just kind of stared. Everyone had blank, tired eyes, not much different from Jake's. I wondered if I looked like that.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

She threw up her hands. "How can I even think about something that unimportant? I mean, like we don't have bigger things to worry about? The fate of planet Earth and the human race?"

"Different things bother different people," I explained patiently. "I know how you feel about your dad."

"He's a jerk for dumping this on me!" She said loudly. "I mean... you know ... I mean..." She swallowed. Tried to take a deep breath. Choked. "It's like... what am I supposed to do?!" she yelled. "After what happened last night... after all that, I have to decide who I want to hurt - my mom or my dad? And you guys? And - "

"Come on, Rachel," Marco said kindly. "Take it easy. Come on, you're Xena -"

"NO! No, I'm not some stupid TV character. I'm not some comic book, Marco. I'm scared, okay?! Just like all the rest of you. I'm scared of what almost happened to me last night. I'm scared just knowing that place exists down there. I'm scared about what happens to me. I just wanted to run away but I didn't think I could, so I was brave because that's the way I'm supposed to be. But now everyone's going, 'Oh, just come live with me and we'll go to ball games,' and 'Hey, forget moving to another state, we have a whole other planet for you.' And the more exits I see, the more scared I get, all right?"

For a long time no one said anything.

Marco sighed heavily. "I've been thinking. I'm changing my vote. If the Ellimist asks again, I'm going to vote yes."

"What?" Jake demanded. "Why?"

Marco shrugged. "Rachel's losing it. If she loses it, how long are the rest of us going to last?"

Tobias fluttered over and rubbed the edge of his beak on her arm, a preening motion with nothing to preen. For a moment she looked like she was going to push him away, but she kept still. "Shut up, Marco, I'm not in the mood for your jokes," was all she said.

"Me neither," Marco said flatly. "You know how much sleep I got last night? About an hour. Nightmares. I was a zombie in school today. I feel like... like my skin has all been rubbed with sandpaper. I'm jumpy. I'm scared. I'm stressed."

"It's gonna happen," Jake said.

"This was always insane, right from the start," Marco said. "A handful of kids fighting an alien invasion? Look what's happening. Tobias is trapped in a morph. Rachel is starting to use morphing to get away from her problems. The other night I woke up in bed, and I didn't know what I was. I didn't know if I had hands or fins or claws or talons. Maybe you and Cassie are immune, Jake. But I doubt it."

We weren't immune. I wasn't. And one look at Jake showed that he wasn't, either.

"We can't give up," Jake argued stubbornly.

"All we ever do is lose," Marco said. "We annoy the yeerks. Maybe we blow up a ship, or have some little success. But the invasion marches on. And all we ever do is barely escape with our lives. We're like some baseball team that never wins a game. And now, according to the Ellimist, we know it's going to be a whole losing season. We aren't going to the play-offs."

"I don't care," Jake said. "I'm not giving up."

He didn't get it. How could he still not get it? "Jake," I said. "See this?" I held up my left arm and pointed to a scar above my wrist. I'd acquired the scar long before the morphing power and, presumably based on whatever arbitrary rule let Rachel keep her pierced ears but didn't copy the wounds of animals we acquired, I still had it. "I got this from a raccoon. The raccoon had been caught in a trap. Its leg was broken. I was trying to free it so I could save it. It bit me."

"We're not raccoons," Jake said.

"Aren't we? Compared to the Ellimist?" I asked. "Isn't it just possible he's right? That what he's trying to do is save at least a part of the human race? That he's just trying to get us out of the trap and fix our broken bones? We're talking about the extinction of our species he – ”

“No, we're not,” Rachel replied. “The yeerks don't want us dead. They want us as slaves.”

“Oh, sorry, you're right; the extinction of free humans. That's so much better.”

“Isn't it?”

I looked at her blankly.

Rachel sighed tiredly, and started to explain. “Humans enslave each other all the time. We always have. And it never lasts forever. If we die, and Earth loses? Two or three hundred years down the track, a resistance force will break away, and there'll be free human colonies, _in space_.” The intensity seemed to drain out of her, and she sank to the floor, somehow still managing to make the action look like a model's pose. “We're fighting for those two or three hundred years. And for the humans who won't get to be part of the resistance, and for their descendants. And I thought you, Cassie, were fighting for the thousands of species that the yeerks are going to wipe out if we lose, that they have no need to protect and that won't get to resist. I guess I was wrong."

Marco shook his head. “Humans can resist humans, but yeerks? Permanently enslaving other species is what they _do_. I'm all for human fighting spirit, but let's be realistic here. Cassie's right. If the Ellimist wanted to hurt us, he could just destroy us. You know it as well as I do. Fine. I'm going to let him get my leg out of the trap. But I have some conditions first. There are some people going with me. But if the Ellimist can save those people along with me, then I have to say yes."

I played my trump card. “We could save Tom. And get Ax sent home, of course.”

Jake merely set his jaw and looked at Rachel. The vote was now two against two. Hers was the deciding vote.

She looked indecisive. For half a second, I thought she was going to turn around and simply run away. Then, she opened her mouth to speak.

_I promised I would ask you again,_ I thought in that mental voice that was not mine.

"Uh-oh," Marco said.

The thoughts became insistent, frustrated. _I will show you what you need to see to understand._

In an instant, we were gone from the barn. The five of us and Ax stood side by side in the middle of an empty field of scruffy, unkempt grass. There was a long, low, tumbledown building a hundred yards away.

The Ellimist was nowhere to be seen. We were the only people around: five humans and one andalite.

"Tobias!" Rachel said.

"Yeah," he said, looking down at his hands. "This routine again."

Jake looked angry. Marco tried to smirk nonchalantly, but wasn't succeeding. No one looked tired anymore. Ax skittered nervously on his dainty hooves and stretched his tail, as if preparing to use it. I glanced at Rachel. Clearly, the Ellimist didn't want to take the chance that she was going to vote 'no'. But she mostly looked puzzled. "The Ellimist again," she said. "Did you guys hear - "

"Yeah, we heard," Jake said. "So we get another chance to change our minds."

"Where are we?" I wondered, glancing about the scorched, blasted landscape. "I mean, something about this looks familiar. But I can't quite place it."

"The school," Tobias said firmly.

"What?" Rachel said. "No way." But he was right. I looked again and realized that I knew each of those tumbled-down, destroyed buildings.

"Okay, I don't like this," Marco said. "I don't even halfway like this. I mean, normally I'm all for seeing the school blown up, but I really don't like this."

"When did this happen?" Rachel wondered aloud. "I skip one day and the place burns down?"

"I don't think so," I said. Something felt... displaced. I didn't know what the feeling meant, but I could read the physical signs well enough. "I don't think this is something that's happened, past tense. I think we're talking future tense." I glanced at Ax for confirmation, who gave a single, sharp nod.

"Or just tense," Marco muttered.

"The sky," I pointed out. "Have you ever seen it that color before?"

"It does seem slightly yellowish," Jake said.

"And the air. Doesn't it smell funny? And look, over there. The trees over behind the gym. They're dying."

"The Ellimist said he would show us something," Rachel muttered. "So what's he showing us? Ax? You understand any of this?"

<There is a time distortion. I sense it. But I don't know what it means. >

"It's the future," I insisted.

"Okaaaaay," Marco said. "So, what are we supposed to do now? Stand around here until the Ellimist comes back for us?"

Jake shrugged. "I guess we look around. The mall's just a quarter mile or so. It should be open."

So we walked. Across the scruffy field, around big ditches and craters that were devoid of grass. Beneath a sky that seemed to add yellow to blue and make patches and wisps of green, unlike any sky I had ever seen. We passed the school and I looked morbidly through the blast holes to see if we could recognize anything.

"YAAAAHHH!" Marco yelled. He reeled back from one of the dark holes. I ran to look inside. It was a classroom. There was a skeleton lying crumpled across the teacher's desk.

"Oh, my God," I whispered. "The body was just left here."

"That's Paloma's classroom," Rachel said. "History class."

It took a few seconds for the significance of that to sink in. The body had been left there to rot. It must have taken years for it to be reduced to nothing but bones. I looked away from the bones, searching for pretty much anything else to look at, and found only a lifeless crater surrounded by a ring of scorched grass. Beyond the scorch marks was green. I had to smile at that. The yeerks might try to kill off as much Earth life as they could, but even they knew better than to try killing off grass.

"Cassie's right. We're in the future," Marco said. "But that's impossible."

<Impossible for humans.> Ax said. <But not impossible for Ellimists. >

"Oh, I get it," Rachel said angrily. "It's a little lesson. The Ellimist is showing us what happens in the future. How cute. How clever. But how do we know this is really the future, and not just some little show he's putting on?"

"Let's try the mall," Jake said. "Although I don't have a good feeling about this."

We left the school behind us. I tried not to think about who that skeleton might have been. Some teacher? Some student? Some person who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? I guess we were all just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Maybe we can check the bookstore at the mall," Marco said. "Find a World Almanac for whatever year this is. See who won all the Super Bowls. Then when we go back to our own time, we can bet on the games. Make a fortune."

I forced a laugh that came out like a grunt.

We needed to keep our spirits up. Marco was trying.

We reached the highway. Eight lanes of concrete, dead silent. Not a car. Not a truck. Empty. On the far side of the highway was a rusted wreck of a car. Bony white hands clutched the steering wheel. We stayed away from it.

I saw something that gleamed brightly, off to the east. It seemed to run in a straight line from the far horizon to a point much closer. I squinted to see what it was.

"Too bad we don't have your hawk eyes now," Rachel whispered to Tobias.

"It's a tube, I think. Like a long, long glass tube. There! Something is moving down it."

<It is a conveyance of some kind,> Ax said. He had turned all four of his eyes toward it. <It seems to be a glass tube that goes on for many miles. Inside it are fast-moving platforms, like your trains. Only faster. They are going perhaps three hundred or more of your miles per hour.>

"They're everyone's miles," Marco said. "You're on Earth, Ax. We all have the same miles."

<What about nations that use kilometers?> Ax asked smugly. <See? I am learning.>

"Some kind of very high-speed train system," Jake said. "That's why no one is on the highway."

"The question is, who built the system?" Rachel pointed out.

A few minutes later, we reached the mall. But it had changed. It had changed quite a bit.

"Oh, man," Marco said. "Look at that! Oh, man."

The mall was still standing. Even the sign that said "Sears" could still be seen. But holes, perfectly round and about six feet across, had been drilled into the sides of the four big department stores. There were six or eight holes in the Penny's. The same with Sears. And from the holes emerged taxxons.

They crawled in and out of the holes. They slithered down to the ground and up to the roof. Some were carrying boxes from a squat, bulky spacecraft that sat in the parking lot. They were unloading it like a truck, carrying silvery packages in through several of the holes.

"It's a hive," I said. I could hear the fascination in my own voice. How sad is that? We were literally standing in the ruins of our own civilisation, and I was thinking, 'we might learn something interesting about taxxons!' "It's like a beehive. Or an ant colony. They've taken it over. The mall is a taxxon hive."

"The future the way it will be if the yeerks win," Rachel said. "Taxxons using the mall for a hive. I guess that means I can forget about any good sales today."

As we circled around the mall, we could see that the tube train made a stop there. The glass tube was raised above the ground about twenty feet, like the monorail at Disneyworld. But there did not seem to be enough supports to hold it up. It was as if it were just hanging there.

Outside the mall, a dropshaft rose up to the tube. A taxxon entered the shaft and swept up to a platform that bulged from the side of the tube.

"Let's stay clear of any taxxons," Tobias said.

But Marco shook his head. "Why? Don't you see? The yeerks have won. So any humans are human-Controllers. The taxxons would just assume we were human-Controllers."

"I guess you're right," Tobias agreed.

"Yeah. So we can go anywhere. Besides, I don't think the Ellimist brought us here to see us get killed."

I relaxed a little, realizing they were right. But still, there was a deeply disturbing feeling about all of it.

<I will morph into human form.> Ax said. <The yeerks may be accustomed to human-Controllers. But they will not have seen any andalite-Controllers except for Visser Three.>

"Are you so sure?" Marco asked. "Maybe in the future the andalites lose to the yeerks, too."

<Never,> Ax snapped angrily. He began to slowly melt into human shape.

“Let's hop the train," Rachel suggested. "See where it goes."

"Excuse me?" Marco laughed. "Climb aboard the yeerk version of Amtrak?"

Rachel shrugged. "You said it, Marco. They'll think we're Controllers. And in any case, the Ellimist didn't bring us here to get us killed."

I smiled. It was reassuring that everyone seemed to be thinking 'let's take this opportunity to learn something', and not just me.

"It is sad about the mall," Ax said, now mostly human. "They had excellent foods for tasting. Tay-sting. Tasting. The Ellimist showed us much of what was excellent in your species and your planet.”

“Yes,” I murmured, remembering the fish. “He did.”

“But he did not mention the sense of taste. Cinnamon buns. Buns. Bunzuh. And chocolate, too."

"Yeah, we have to save any species that can invent the warm cinnamon bun," Rachel said sardonically. "Come on, let's try this."

It only took a couple minutes to walk to the dropshaft. As we neared it, a Taxxon slithered up alongside us. He was racing to get ahead, like a rushing commuter. But aside from that, he paid us no mind.

"You think the yeerks have a rush hour?" Marco muttered under his breath.

"Quiet," Jake snapped. "We're Controllers now, not normal humans."

The taxxon reached the dropshaft ahead of us. He stepped in through the large opening and was immediately swept up onto the platform overhead.

We stepped forward. Seconds later we were on the platform, twenty feet up, and could see in all directions.

A small yeerk pool had been built on the roof of the mall. Right over the place where the food court had been. It was a shallow, sludgy pool. Half a dozen taxxons lounged around it, almost as if they were sunbathing. There were no cages at this yeerk pool. Taxxons are all voluntary hosts. Another reason not to like them. At least the hork-bajir had resisted the yeerks. I couldn't help but wonder why the taxxons hadn't.

Suddenly, in a rush of wind, a platform came down the glass tube like a bullet. It stopped in front of us and the taxxon quickly slithered aboard. We followed. It was not a closed car like a train. It was just a clear platform, open at the front end and the back. There were maybe twenty standard seats, half occupied by human-Controllers. Toward the back was an open area where the taxxon went. At the front were several larger chairs. Much larger, and made of steel with no padding. Those had to be for hork-bajir. Space for about four hork-bajir, maybe two or three taxxons, and seats for twenty or more humans. So there were far more humans around than either taxxons or hork-bajir, I concluded. We would not look out of place.

The train launched like a bullet down the glass tunnel. But there was no lurch. And no rushing wind. We just blew along at a speed that boggled the mind.

The trip from the suburban mall to downtown usually took half an hour by bus. We made the trip in about a minute and a half. Jake gave me a look. We were getting off here.

We rose and left the train. "Fast," Marco said.

"Beats the bus," I agreed.

It was beyond strange, walking the streets of downtown. Entire skyscrapers were simply gone. Others now had wormholes for the taxxons. I looked up thirty stories and saw taxxons crawling up the sides of a building that used to be the headquarters for a bank.

The tallest building in town was the EGS Tower. It was sixty stories tall. It still stood, almost intact. But for some reason the top two floors had been sheared away, then covered with a glass dome. Pale sunlight sparkled off the dome. It was almost like a beacon.

Humans and hork-bajir walked the street, side by side. But not in large numbers. In fact, the entire city seemed far emptier than it should have been.

We turned a corner and froze.


	12. Chapter 12

"That's where the City Arena should be," Rachel said in a distant voice. "It's where we saw the circus."

"The Arena. That big department store. That building that used to have the tall antennae on top. They're all gone," Marco said. "Just... gone."

In their place was a yeerk pool.

A pool of shocking size. It was a small lake, really. You could have ridden around on it in a motorboat and not looked out of place.

It was three times as wide as a football field is long. Maybe four times as wide. And all around it were cages, just like the underground yeerk pool we knew too well.

But there was a difference here. The humans and hork-bajir in these cages no longer called for help. They cried, they sobbed, or more often they just stared blankly into space. But they did not call for help. They knew there was no help coming. They knew that hope was dead.

We just stared, the six of us. Just stared emptily.

A human-Controller brushed past us, jostling us as she went.

"Excuse _me_ ," Rachel said in a sarcastic voice. The woman stopped. She came back toward us.

"What did you say?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Rachel said.

"What is your name?"

She wanted a yeerk name. What did I know about yeerk names? They had a name, a number, and a pool name. I knew a couple of yeerk names, but not enough for everyone. And without knowing how the system worked, I could too easily make a fatal mistake.

<Daya one-four-seven,> Ax prompted.

“Daya one-four-seven,” Rachel repeated. “And you are?”

“Your administrator. Once I confirm your schedule, anyway.” She pulled up her sleeve and started tapping away at a computer on her wrist.

That... might be a problem.

“I can't seem to find your name here,” the woman said in a low, dangerous voice.

"Her name is not your concern," Tobias said.

The woman sneered. "Oh? And why is that? You are spies, that's what you are. Spies!"

"Her name is not your concern," Tobias repeated. "His name is your concern." He jerked his thumb at Ax. "Because his name... is Visser Three."

  
  



	13. Chapter 13

Ax caught on immediately. He began to demorph. And as soon as the andalite stalk eyes appeared, the woman began to tremble.

"But...but...you said Visser Three. Only Visser One has an Andalite host body!"

Great. Visser Three had been promoted.

"Yeah," Rachel said to the woman. "But he was Visser Three back in the old days. Back when we were all friends. Comrades in arms."

"I ... we ... no one told us you were visiting Earth, Visser," the woman babbled. She was clearly terrified. Obviously Visser Three's reputation had not softened any over the years.

Ax had regained his full andalite form. And the various Controllers on the street were staring in a mixture of fascination and fear.

"If I had known ..." the woman moaned. "I would never. …"

Ax waved his hand dismissively. <Silence. You are right to remain vigilant. If you had not been vigilant I would have destroyed you for being a careless fool. Now get out of here.>

"Yes, my Visser! Yes!" The woman took off.

Fast.

Which left us standing around in the street, gaping at the yeerk pool. And a lot of Controllers gaping at us.

"This isn't good," Marco said. "Word is going to travel very fast that Visser Three is here. And someone is going to realize the truth."

"So what now?"

Jake wondered. "How long does the Ellimist want to leave us here?"

"Until we are convinced he's right," Tobias said.

"There must be something more he wants us to see," I said. Something was off. And it wasn't just that my memory kept filling in buildings where they used to be. In front of us, the yeerk pool marked the place where Rachel had threatened an elephant trainer not too long ago. Not far behind us was the former position of the alley we'd escaped into via dropshaft. I wondered vaguely whether the underground pool was still there.

“What?” Rachel asked me.

“I don't know. But there's something deeper here. This is off.”

The yeerk pool was a busy little place. Controllers coming and going. The host bodies were shoved into cages, and dragged back out when it was time.

There was a steady procession along the six different piers, draining out and taking in yeerks. Over it all loomed the EGS Tower, topped off by the glass dome.

"Why put a yeerk pool here?" Rachel wondered aloud. "I mean, there's all kinds of open areas. Why go to the trouble of removing the buildings that were here? It's not like this is exactly a scenic location."

“It might be, for yeerks,” I shrugged. “It's the centre of a conquered city. Maybe that's important, to them? Like some kind of memorial site.”

“It's right above their first Earth yeerk pool,” Marco added. “Maybe it's historic.”

“Assuming our yeerk pool is the first,” I pointed out. “Maybe there are pools in other cities.”

"I wonder what year it is?" Marco said. "Is this next year? Ten years from now? Twenty?"

I heard a low roar coming from the sky. A Bug fighter swooped down low, took a turn around the EGS Tower, and settled toward the near side of the yeerk pool. Rachel started walking towards it.

“Uh, Rachel?” Tobias asked.

“I... think we should check it out,” she said vaguely.

We all exchanged looks. Rachel was the swinging vote, the one the Ellimist was trying to convince. Maybe he was leading her somewhere. Maybe he wanted her to see something specific.

"It's okay," Marco said, jerking his thumb at Ax. "We're with Visser Three here. Excuse me, I mean Visser One. And congrats on the big promotion, by the way."

Ax stepped out quickly in front, swaggering and acting the role of the great and terrible Visser. It occurred to me that the Visser might actually be quite old by now. It was hard to know exactly how far in the future we were, but the skeletons, the dying trees... it had to be a few years, bare minimum. Maybe decades. I hadn't seen any humans that I recognised.

As we drew closer to the pool, there was a crowd of controllers, humans, hork-bajir, taxxons, and a few odd species I had never seen. The crowd parted very quickly. No one wanted to accidentally annoy Visser One in any way.

We swaggered up to the Bug fighter like the bosses of all the world. Then the door of the Bug fighter opened.

I stopped. Ax stopped as well. The others crowded behind us.

My skin was tingling. My hair felt like it was standing on end. Something grew in the pit of my stomach. I knew that feeling. I knew what it meant.

He stepped from the Bug fighter. Visser Three. Or One, I suppose. His own personal field of dread was getting to me, but for the first time ever, he didn't look angry at our presence. Not even Ax's. He merely swept us with a mildly amused, contemptuous glance, and moved aside. Then a human followed him out. A young woman in short hair, no makeup and plain clothes, but with a manner about her that suggested, even as she stepped out of an alien spacecraft onto a war-scarred landscape, that she was striding down a runway.

Ax and Visser One both backed out of the way.

The woman's gaze rested on my friend, and she smiled. “Hello, Rachel.”

My friend stared coldly back. “Hello, Rachel.”


	14. Chapter 14

"I knew you were coming," the future Rachel said. "After all, I was you. Once I stood right where you stand now, and looked just like you look now, and saw myself as I am today."

She sounded perfectly calm. But her eyes flickered quickly to Ax, then back to Rachel. Visser Three shook his head in amusement.

<If only I had known from the start that you were humans. For so long I believed you were andalites. Until, at last, we caught you. Elfangor, of all people... I can still barely believe it.>

"You're a Controller," Rachel said to her older self. I felt Jake's hand squeeze mine. He must be remembering those three horrible days when a yeerk lived in his brain, forcing him to do things... I squeezed back, and tried to forget the sensation of Jake beating my head in with a rock.

"Of course," she said. She smiled. A cruel smile, not at all like Rachel. "We won. You all led us on a nice chase, but in the end, we won. This planet is yeerk territory. The human race has achieved its destiny as hosts for the yeerk race."

"If you know so much, how did we come to be here? In the future?" Marco asked.

<An Ellimist has brought you here.> Visser Three said. <In your own time, you face a choice. The Ellimist has brought you six humans . . . you five humans and one andalite . . . here to show you a future. To show you the future. Soon he will return you to your own time.

"What choice did we make?" Rachel asked.

The older Rachel smiled her cruel smile. "The right one, obviously. Everything has worked out perfectly."

"Yeah?" Jake said defiantly. "Maybe not. The Ellimist brought us here to help us make a choice. So what if we go back to our own time and decide to accept the Ellimist's offer? Then Rachel won't be around to be turned into a Controller. She'll be with the rest of us on whatever planet the Ellimist takes us to."

I watched closely for any reaction from older Rachel. Nothing. Not a flicker. And yet, there was something. She was trying to hide something.

"You know what we decided. But still, here you are," Rachel said. "So either you're here to change what I decided. Except... no, then it might change all of this. Or else you're here because your being here is what caused me to decide whatever I decided."

<Confusing, isn't it?> Visser Three sneered. <I don't know how the Ellimists keep it all straight.>

 _Six humans... five humans and one andalite_. They had been expecting six humans. Interesting. But what did it mean? “Let's leave," I said. "I don't like this place, and I don't like these two . . . creatures."

"But Cassie, I'm your best friend," the older Rachel said mockingly.

I remembered Jake, armed with a rock and nasty words. "No, you're not. Maybe Rachel is still alive in there somewhere. But what you are is a yeerk." I turned away. As I did, I tripped and fell against Rachel. Suddenly, the older Rachel was there. She grabbed her and held her arm steady so that she didn't fall. But to Ax it must have looked like she was lunging at us. His tail whipped forward in the blink of an eye.

Ax's quivering blade was pressed against the older Rachel's throat. Her eyes went wide with fear. She shot a glance at Visser Three. And to my amazement, Visser Three seemed frozen. He was confused.

His main eyes narrowed. He looked from Ax, to the older Rachel, to our Rachel.

"This wasn't in the script, was it?" Rachel asked him. "This wasn't supposed to happen. Something has changed! It's Ax, isn't it? You said 'six humans' before. That's what you expected to find. That's what Rachel told you would happen. But the future has changed, hasn't it? Something is different."

Visser Three glared. <Do you know what I did when I finally caught you and your little band of animorphs? Do you know what I did? I gave each of you to a trusted lieutenant. And once you belonged to us, once you were MINE, I killed your bird friend here, and we roasted his body. >

Visser Three narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to Rachel. <He was tough and stringy, but we added a sauce you humans have. Barbecue, I believe it's called. And then your friend Tobias was delicious. You had a leg, as I recall. You ate it and laughed. >

He was obviously trying to enrage us. I put a calming had on Rachel's elbow. _Don't do anything stupid._

Ax still had his tail blade pressed against the older Rachel's throat. <He can't hurt us.> Ax said. <He can't do a thing to us. If he does, he would change history. He doesn't know how that would work out. >

"Good point, Ax," Jake said. He had a dangerous, angry look in his eyes. "He can't hurt us. But the reverse... well..."

"Excellent point," Rachel agreed. Brown fur began to sprout over her body. "So, Visser. You killed my friend Tobias and roasted him over a fire.”

As she grew, Tobias shrank. Orange fur erupted from Jake's arms. I fell forward onto hands that were rapidly melting into paws.

"Visser," the older Rachel said tersely. "What do we do?"

<We?> Visser Three said. <We do nothing. I retreat. >

<Wow,> I told older Rachel. <I guess the Visser really values his lieutenants, huh.>

Her eyes widened. She started to morph. But too late, much too late. Rachel's giant paw slashed forward, for her throat.


	15. Chapter 15

"Owww!" Rachel pulled her human hand away from the tree she'd just bashed it into and shook it. She was human again. We all were, except Tobias, perched above us, and Ax, in his andalite form. We were in the woods behind my farm.

"No! I'm sick of this!" Rachel yelled. She slammed the tree again in sheer frustration. "I'm sick of this!

I put my arm around my shoulders. "It doesn't matter. That's a Visser Three who doesn't exist yet."

"I'm so sick of this," she said again, a little more softly. "What's the point? What's the point in anything? We know the future now. We know what happens if we decide to stay and fight."

She flopped down onto the grass and pine needle-covered ground, and rested her head in her hands. I flopped down next to her. The six of us just lay there on the floor of pine needles for a while. Staring. Thinking. Letting it all sink in.

It looked unanimous. We were all pretty much sure we were doomed.

But it felt wrong.

Six humans. I don't know what we possibly could have changed that would make us six humans. The skeletons. The trees. The sky. I looked up at our own blue sky. Picked up a handful of pine needles, let them trickle through my fingers.

<It could all still be an Ellimist trick,> Ax said halfheartedly.

"No," Rachel said flatly. "You know it's not a trick, Ax. At least not the way you mean. If the Ellimist wanted to force us to do something, he has more than enough power."

"We need to think this through," Jake said wearily.

"You think it through,” Rachel snapped. “I'm tired of thinking: I was just about to vote when the Ellimist dragged us off for his little show-and-tell. I was about to be good old Rachel and vote no. I was going to be tough, one more time. But I'm changing my vote. I'm not going to end up as a Controller. That's not going to happen. Not to me. If that means I'm running away, too bad. I change my vote."

"That makes it Cassie, Rachel, and me, in favor," Marco said. "Three to two, unless Ax is voting."

<I follow Prince Jake,> Ax said.

<Maybe...> Tobias began. <Maybe if some of the human race survives on some other planet... maybe it will be like when they brought wolves back to live in the National Forest. I mean, maybe someday we can return and take Earth back. >

"Are you changing your vote, Tobias?" Jake asked him.

<Jake, you know I would never run from a fight...>

We all just sat there, staring at nothing.

“I want to change my vote,” I said suddenly. I surprised myself, but not half as much as I surprised everybody else. They stared at me. Every human mouth hung open.

<Are you... are you sure?> Tobias asked.

“Yes,” I said. “No. I don't... we're missing something, and I think we need all the information to make this decision. Like Ax.”

Ax took a step back, defensive. <What about me?>

“You're supporting Jake. And you don't like Ellimists. If you weren't here, Rachel's 'yes' would swing the vote. And you weren't here. The Ellimist didn't send us back where we started this time, he sent us to the forest. He included you, and tied the vote. And... and the six humans. That shows the future can be changed. And...” I stood up, brushing pine needles down onto the grass. “Grass!”

“What about grass?” Jake frowned.

“The grass. In the future. The big holes in the ground were coated in ash, with no grass. The grass was scorched around them. The grass was growing fine everywhere else.”

“Wouldn't you expect that from some kind of big laser blast?” Marco asked.

“When it happened, yes. But trees take time to die, skeletons take time to decompose. In that time, the grass should've grown back in the craters.”

“Maybe there's something about the craters that makes it not be able to?”

“Then the scorched grass on the edges should've been gone by then!” I was pacing, I realised. “Doesn't anybody else think that's weird?”

“I guess,” Marco shrugged. “But the enslavement of our species is kinda the more important detail, isn't it?”

“Not everything is about humans, Marco.” I sat back down.

“This... sort of is about humans. This war, I mean.”

“Humanity isn't in any danger,” I said dismissively. “Rachel was right. We're about the safest species on this planet; not as individuals, of course, but as a whole. Cattle and sheep and cereal grains dominate the Earth because they're useful to humans. And us, we're useful to yeerks. Humans have survived generations of slavery and then revolted before. If the yeerks win, we'll do it again. But in the meantime, the yeerks will kill everything else that they... you know, I just realised that none of us are very smart.”

“Is Cassie freaking out now?” Marco asked. “Have we moved on from the Rachel freakout to the Cassie freakout? Do we need to book slots? Because I think I want to go next.”

I probably did sound crazy. I took a couple of deep breaths, and collected my thoughts.

Humanity didn't need saving. That was the whole problem with the Ellimist's claim. Like anybody else, I'd rather not see my species go through a few generations of slavery. Rachel was right; avoiding that was something worth fighting for. But in this context, that was a distraction. When the Ellimist had shown us the beauty of Earth, it had been so much more than humans. 'A few species that are of special interest to us', my butt. But that wasn't the important part.

“It's a false dichotomy,” I explained. “The most obvious false dichotomy of all time. This is the sort of example that you would write down and show people to teach them what a false dichotomy is. A textbook example.” I shouldn't have fallen for that. I was slipping. “We're looking at this as an either-or choice: _either_ stay and fight a hopeless war, _or_ start a reserve colony of free humans.”

“So...?” Jake prompted.

“So, you and Rachel are cousins. Diabetes runs in my family. None of us are great artists or thinkers, at least not yet. The Ellimist must only be able to take a limited number of people, or he would've offered to just take the whole planet. We're not exactly ideal colony stock, are we? We were asked to decide on behalf of humanity...”

“But that's no reason for us to go!” Rachel said, in sudden understanding.

“Remember future Rachel?” Marco asked. “He specifically offered to take us. I think he wants us off the planet. I think maybe it's our morphing abilities that make the yeerks win, once we're captured.”

“If we don't stay and fight, the Earth is doomed,” Jake said. “So we just have to make sure, no matter what, to never be captured. Are we ready for a decision?”

“Yes.”

<Yeah.>

“Let's do it.”

<Yes, Prince Jake.>

I took Jake's hand and shot him a smile. “I'm ready.”

“Ellimist?” Jake called softly.

The breeze stopped. Dust that was twirling in the sunlight froze. Tobias, fully human, fell clumsily from his fortunately quite low branch. The little old man alien appeared before us, glowing blue.

Jake swallowed. “On behalf of humanity, we accept your offer, on the condition that the Animorphs remain here to fight.” He glanced around. “Anybody who wants to go to the colony, now's the time to say so.”

The Ellimist's face broke into what I would call, on a human, a sincere smile. “And your families?”

“We can't,” Marco said hesitantly. “It... it would be too suspicious.” Marco's dad probably wouldn't do too well without him anyway.

“My mum would kill me if I sent her off to live in some colony,” Rachel joked.

“Very well. It will be done.” The Ellimist gave a tiny bow, and disappeared.

The breeze picked up once more. Rachel lifted Tobias back up to his branch.

“Well,” Marco said. “That was anticlimactic.”

“Yeah,” Rachel added, “finally, we can accomplish something without lasers and explosions.”

“Hey, I was not complaining.”

The Animorphs began to disperse. I shot Tobias a look, and hung back. He waited until we were alone before asking, <What is it, Cassie?>

“I need a favor,” I said. “And Rachel can't know about it.”

He cocked his head, which is about as expressive as a hawk can get. <What is it?>

“I need... I need to be sure that Rachel's dad isn't a controller.”

Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. After a pause he ventured, <Do you think he might be?>

“I don't know. Call it a hunch. But I'd feel a lot better if...”

<So would I. Consider it done, Cassie.>


	16. Chapter 16

School the next day was weird. I kept remembering the huge holes in the buildings I passed, the scars in the green field under my feet. Sitting in class, trying to pay attention while my teacher, Ms. Paloma, talked about what led up to the Second World War, all I could think of was being able to see right through a giant hole in the wall. In the future, six kids would stand on the other side of that hole, and stare in in disbelief.

"Maybe if the United States had been ready to fight earlier," she was saying, "the war would have ended earlier and fewer people would have been killed. But our country wanted peace."

I just kept looking at her and wondering, _Was that your skeleton draped across the desk?_

"Because we were so devoted to peace, we may have actually made the war worse," Ms. Paloma droned on. I felt my own fists clench. I preferred to think that peace was always the best way, but what we preferred to think didn't change what was. I would have been a pacifist... except we were being invaded by aliens, and the only way to protect my planet was to rip out chunks of my enemy's flesh with my teeth. Not even my enemy's flesh – just the flesh of their slaves, being used as meat shields. How screwed up was that?

"We'll never know for sure, of course,” Ms Paloma continued. “You can't really second-guess history." You can if you're an Ellimist, I thought. If you're an Ellimist, you can look ahead and see it all. Except when you can't. Except when you see six humans, instead of five and an andalite.

"Why not?" I asked. Something was still wrong, something... "Why can't you second-guess history? I mean, if you could go back and change things so that the U.S. was ready to fight earlier. …"

Ms. Paloma sat on the edge of her desk.

"Because events are intertwined in ways we cannot always see, Cassie. Sometimes small things can make huge differences. You know, they say that a single butterfly, beating its wings in China, may affect the way the wind blows here in our country. A single butterfly beating its wings may make a tiny change that becomes a bigger change that becomes a tornado. The world isn't like math. It isn't just one plus one equals two. It's more complicated than that."

Complicated. Everything was always complicated.

The choice... he hadn't been angry at our conditions. He'd smiled at us, like he expected it. Then why involve us and our families in the initial offer? A test of wits. That fit with the Ellimists' place in andalite mythos as some kind of race of trickster gods. A test of wits, with Backup Earth as the prize. And not a bad one, either; either of the 'losing' scenarios would've been entirely our choice, made with open eyes. And to make things tricky, as some kind of... test of mettle, I guess, he'd approached us first when we were facing certain death. And we probably would've failed, if we hadn't seen the dropshaft and thought...

I felt the blood leave my face. I sat very still, and pretended to be paying attention to the Second World War.

The bell rang and I practically jerked up out of my seat. I threaded through the throng of leaving students, towards Rachel.

“He showed us the dropshaft,” I muttered.

“Hello to you too, Cassie.”

“The Ellimist. We thought it was unfair of him to approach us when we were about to die. But we saw our escape while talking to him. We would have died otherwise.”

“... That's good? I guess I don't have to be mad at him any more?” Rachel shrugged and started picking up her books. We were the only ones left in the classroom, and the longer she took, the longer we could talk privately. “I can't figure out why all the yeerk pool entrances aren't dropshafts. They're a lot more convenient. What, are they reserved for high-ranking yeerks or something?”

“I bet high-ranking yeerks love to come out in an alley.”

“Hey, don't knock it,” Rachel joked. “That alley is right across the road from Kittens' Mittens.”

I frowned. “I know that name, don't I?”

“It's a vintage store I've been trying to get you into since forever?”

“The little place across from the EGS tower,” I said, remembering. I swallowed. “Rachel,” I said slowly, “does that dropshaft end at the base of the EGS tower?”

“Probably,” she said, just as slowly. “That would be the same tower that was left intact in the future, wouldn't it?”

“Overseeing the yeerk pool.”

“Overseeing both the yeerk pools!” Rachel cleared her throat. “Cassie, I think after school, we need to find Ax.”

“I think you might be right, Rachel.”


	17. Chapter 17

“A few days ago, you called the yeerk pool the centre of the yeerks' lives,” Rachel pointed out. “'Almost a religion,' you said.” She was pacing back and forth in Ax's meadow. He watched her, puzzled, from the door of his little semicircular shack. One of his stalk eyes would occasionally settle on me, leaning silently on a tree.

<That is correct,> he said.

“But it's not the yeerk pool,” she said. “It's the Kandrona that's the centre of their lives really, isn't it?”

<The Kandrona is vital to yeerk survival. It is usually concealed, though, for security reasons, so not much cerenomy can be built upon it.>

“Yeah, I can see how it's a high value target in times of war, but what if the war were over? Then the yeerks would probably be a long more fancy about it, wouldn't they?”

<I suppose so.>

“Might they, say, leave the tower it's in standing when they demolish everything else to make a new yeerk pool, and cover it in a big glass dome? You know, in a hypothetical future?”

She suddenly had Ax's full attention. <That... is a distinct possibility.>

“Would you recognise a Kandrona on sight?” I asked.

<Yes.> Ax glanced between the two of us. <We should find a way into that building.>

It looked like we were getting a climactic battle after all.

At five-ten in the morning, the EGS Tower's windows were almost all dark. From the deeply shadowed plaza in front of the building, we could see a sleepy, uniformed guard inside the lobby.

"There are dozens of businesses and law firms and stuff in this building," Jake warned. "Most of them are probably just normal people. Fortunately, at this time of day, almost no one will be here. But the guard is probably just a normal guy."

"How do we deal with him without hurting him?" I asked.

Suddenly Tobias swooped down out of a dark sky. <I can't see anything useful through the windows up there.> he said. <Too bad that glass dome is still in the future. But I can tell you one thing. Something up there is giving off some heat. I'm getting a beautiful updraft from the building itself.>

"Let's do this, already," Rachel grumbled. She started morphing into the bear.

"Okay, but take it easy on any innocent bystanders," Jake said. "Tobias? I know you're wearing out, but stay up and keep an eye out while we morph."

<No prob, Jake. > He flapped his wings and slowly gained altitude.

I still thought that there had to be an easier way to deal with this than fighting our was up the tower. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of what that easier way was. All the windows were shut, and our little bird bodies couldn't shatter them. Demorphing on a ledge to break a window would probably get us shot. Tobias had already done a flyover and confirmed that there were no doors in the roof. In any other building, somebody would've suggested knocking out the security guard and taking his ID, but somehow we didn't think the yeerks here would be lax on security. So far, the most efficient plan anybody had suggested was putting an elephant on the roof and seeing if she could break through it, but that had the minor drawback of possibly killing Rachel, as well as all the businessmen and lawyers and stuff that Jake had mentioned.

I wished we'd brought the Dracon beam that we'd captured in the hospital. But a bird carrying an alien weapon may have looked a tad suspicious.

"These doors will be locked," I pointed out.

<Not for long,> Rachel said, already nearly half grizzly.

Jake's eyes were glittering, his body was lengthening, and striped orange-and-black fur was spreading like a wave over his skin. I was already on all fours. Rough gray fur grew thickly around my shoulders. My mouth bulged out further and further to form a wolf's muzzle.

<Hey! A guy's coming up behind you.> Tobias called down. <I think he's drunk. He's carrying a bottle. If it were daytime, I could read the label. He's definitely staggering. >

<Keep morphing.> Jake said quickly. <Cassie? See if you can get rid of him. >

Why me? Because I morphed the fastest? Because he didn't trust Rachel right now? I finished the morph and trotted off. I was indeed some drunk guy. Easy enough.

"Grrrrrr, grrrrrr, grrrOVVWWRR!"

"Whoa! No way!" The man dropped his beer and ran. Good, I'd been worried he might do something stupid.

I returned just as the others were finishing their morphs. <He decided to go in a different direction,> I reported.

<Okay, so let's go in.> Rachel.

<Actually, how about if Marco tries it first?> Jake suggested.

While the rest of us lurked in the shadows, Marco, now an extremely large, powerful gorilla, knuckle-walked to the glass door. He stood up on his hind legs and tapped with one massive finger on the glass.

The guard jerked in his seat. He stood up and moved cautiously closer. Then he drew his gun.

"Hey, get out of here," the guard said.

<Hi.> Marco said in thought-speak. <I just came from a masquerade party, and I was looking for Visser Three. >

The guard's eyes went wide. "Andalite!" he hissed.

<Oh, so you _are_ a Controller. Good, that makes it so much simpler. >

With that, Marco punched straight through the thick glass of the door.

CRASH!

His gorilla fist connected squarely with the guard's chin. The guard crumpled, still holding his gun.

<Move, move, move!> Jake yelled.

<You know, even if these people are Controllers, they're still innocent,> I reminded everyone. <It's the things in their heads making them attack us.>

Rachel barrelled through the glass door, widening the hole for the rest of us. Marco picked up the guard's gun, failed to fit his massive gorilla finger onto the trigger, and handed it to Ax. We ran for the elevator.

<There may be an alarm. We have to move fast,> Jake said.

<We'll never fit in one elevator,> Marco said.

<Head for the freight elevator. That'll hold us,> Jake said. <Go for the top floor. >

Ax and I kept an eye on all activity on the ground floor while they waited for the elevator to come back down. Jake, Marco, and Rachel had the most firepower, so they went in first. We squeezed our combined bulk into the one freight elevator car - not an easy thing to do - but we managed it.

<Going up,> Marco said, prodding at the button.

The doors closed and we rose swiftly upward. There was a safety inspection certificate mounted on one wall. I leaned very close to make out the letters, and read it aloud. <Says here the maximum load is twenty people. >

<How many bears, tigers, wolves, aliens and gorillas?>

The ride seemed to be taking forever. I watched the counter tick off the floors. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.

<So. Seen any good movies lately?> Jake asked.

<I want to go see that new Keanu Reeves movie,> Rachel said.

<He's supposed to be cute, right?>

<Duh. I wonder if he'd ever want to go out with a girl like me. You know, lots of guys wouldn't want to date a grizzly bear. >

<Get ready,> Jake said.

<Born ready,> Rachel responded. I was kind of bothered about her. She was breaking down faster than any of us.

<Top floor. Ladies shoes. Children's apparel. Everyone out,> Marco announced in his best elevator operator's voice.

The elevator stopped. The door opened.

Just as three humans and two hork-bajir were racing toward the elevator.

"Rrrrrroooowwwwrrrr!" Jake roared in a voice that could crack concrete.

"Rrrrrooooowwwwrrr!" Rachel echoed in her own muddier bear voice.

I considered adding a wolf snarl, but it might sound a bit pathetic following that act.

Rachel charged like an enraged bull. She went straight for the nearest hork-bajir, knocking a human out of the way as if he wasn't even there. She slammed into the hork-bajir and kept going until he met wall.

Jake took down the other Hork-Bajir with a lightning swipe of his claws. The remaining humans bolted.

<I'm cut,> Jake said.

<Is it bad?>

<It isn't good. But I'll be okay for a while.>

Marco casually walked over to a window and smashed it. Seconds later, Tobias swooped in.

<They will have more up here, guarding the Kandrona,> Ax warned.

<Good,> Rachel said, nonchalantly loping forward.

<Uh, Rachel?> I pointed out. <There's a door straight ahead of you. >

<Nah. There's no door.> She plowed all her eight hundred pounds into a steel door that popped open like the lid of a jack-in-the-box.

Inside, eight Hork-Bajir warriors stood ready.

Eight walking razor blades.

Eight of them. Five of us. No way we could win.

Rachel charged.


	18. Chapter 18

At that moment, I knew that Rachel should go live with her dad. She couldn't stay with us. She was breaking down, and she was trying to handle it with impossible battles. She was going to get herself killed. I still wasn't sure if it was a suicide run, or if she was just trying to prove to herself how strong she was. At that point, it didn't matter.

<Rachel!> I cried.

<Too late to retreat,> Jake said. <GO!>

We went.

Jake slashed at hork-bajir calves, trying to take out their tendons. I leapt and buried my teeth into shoulders. Tobias swooped in and out, trying to wheel in the confined space, raking his talons at eyes. Marco picked up an unconscious hork-bajir and used him to hit other hork-bajir. Ax, not daring to use his gun in such a space, struck over and over with his tail. Rachel was a slashing, growling wall of mutilation.

But shoulders weren't enough. Tendons weren't enough. We were going after the Kandrona, these guys wouldn't stop just because they were disabled. Marco was the only one strong enough to knock them out, and we only had one of him.

Rachel had the right idea, I realised hollowly as a hork-bajir missing most of its throat landed in front of me. Jake had figured it out; a hork-bajir landed on its knees in front of him, gurgling through blood. Reluctantly, I stopped aiming at shoulders, and started aiming at throats.

The best throat-crushing animals are things like cheetahs. But a wolf's jaws can crack bone. A wolf's jaws would do.

Screams and grunts of pain exploded in the air around me, and in my mind. Hork-bajir. Bear. Tiger. Gorilla. Andalite. Some of them were wolf, I realised, as a hork-bajir sunk his wrist-blade into my shoulder. Ax's tailblade flashed, and the blade, along with most of the arm, was no longer attached to a hork-bajir.

Rachel was bleeding a lot. Or maybe it was just her enemies. Marco was much worse, fighting one-handed as he held his intestines in with the other. Tobias had to be worn out by now, but he landed on a hork-bajir's face, claws dug into it's eyes.

“AAAAAAARGH!!” the hork-bajir screamed, bolting in blind panic. Out the doorway. Straight through a window. Tobias peeled away just in time.

The carnage stopped.

Bodies littered the floor around us. A few of the hork-bajir were probably just unconscious. Most were definitely dead. I looked away – to Marco, still holding his guts in. With his free hand, he lifted the crumpled door into place. Ax helped him move a desk to block it.

<Is everyone alive?> Jake asked faintly.

<I'm hurt bad.> Marco said. <I gotta morph out, man.>

<Do it.> Jake said. <Everyone. Demorph. >

<I'm okay.> Rachel said weakly. She was missing an entire paw.

<Rachel.> Tobias said. <Your left arm. >

She stared dumbly down at it. <Demorphing.>

We were in a large office. Empty desks stood unscarred by the brief, bloody battle, as if waiting for workers to come in like any morning. I wondered if the hork-bajir bodies would be gone before anybody got there.

There was a single door on the other side of the room. We all exchanged glances and, as one, moved forward.

Jake nodded wearily to Ax, who took point. He was a little injured, but he had a tail-blade, and he and I were probably the least worn-out. He'd done the least morphing, and I think I get a lot more morphing practise than any of the other Animorphs. Besides, everyone else had worn themselves out in battle. Wolves may not be the deadliest animals, but they have amazing stamina.

Ax disappeared through the doorway. A few moment later, he reported, <We are alone, Prince Jake.>

The rest of us followed him in.

A bare room. Tile floor. White painted walls.

The wall of windows was blocked by heavy curtains. The room was empty but for a large, massively built platform in the very center.

It was a steel pedestal, maybe three-feet-high, eight-feet-long.

And atop that pedestal was a machine the size of a small car. It was shaped like a bow-sided cylinder, tapered to dull points on both ends. It gleamed brightly, like new chrome, as if it had just been polished. And it made a slight, low humming noise. As I approached I felt my hair stand on end from the static electricity. It was warm in the room, very warm. It smelled like lightning.

<The Kandrona.> Ax said.

"The Kandrona," I echoed.

For a full minute we all just stood there, gaping at it.

"Rachel?" Jake said at last. "We need you to morph again. Can you do it?"

She nodded slowly. "Elephant?"

“Can you do it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I have to, don't I?”

The rest of us should be getting into bird morphs, ready to escape. None of us started morphing. Rachel would need to morph again to escape, and we weren't leaving without her.

Rachel closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began to change.

She grew. Tusks forced their way around her lips. Her nose lengthened, and became leathery.

She stopped. Took a few deep breaths. Slowly, her fingers melded into elephant feet.

The changes stopped again.

Rachel was an enormous, leathery near-elephant with creepily human eyes and long, blond hair. A strip of bright blue spandex, the vestiged of her morphing outfit, stretched down her right flank. <I don't... I don't think I can...>

“Then push, Rachel,” I said gently. “Push!”

We broke a window so that Tobias could do a quick scout for pedestrians. Then Rachel braced her almost-elephant bulk against the base of the giant cylinder, and pushed.

It moved slowly, reluctantly. But it moved.

Marco and I ripped the curtains away from the windows to remove as much from the Kandrona's path as possible as Rachel forced it through the giant window. It teetered.... tipped... fell. We all crowded around to watch it crash to the pavement below.

Rachel started to demorph. Returning to your own body is easier, fortunately. She flopped down onto the floor. “We made a difference, didn't we?” she said faintly.

“Yeah.” I stared down at the shattered mess on the pavement below. The pavement where, in the future, a huge pit would be dug out for a yeerk pool. But the yeerks wouldn't be stupid enough to use the EGS tower again. There would be no future where that tower stood alone over the pool.

Maybe there would be no future where that pool existed at all.

<Rachel, you gotta morph again,> Jake said. <We have to get out of here.> He was already mostly falcon. Marco, too, was growing osprey feathers. Ax guarded us, tail and gun both at the ready.

I exchanged a glance with Tobias. He knew better than anyone that flying was about more than a coating of feathers. A half-eagle Rachel wasn't going to cut it. Could she make it all the way?

“Shrew, Rachel,” I said as feathers started to sprout from my skin. “Go shrew.”

She frowned. Rachel hated the shrew morph. Shrews were small prey animals, tiny and afraid. They were the opposite of a grizzly bear. “Shrew? Why?”

We might not have time for lengthy discussions. “Just trust us, please?”

Rachel nodded, and focused.

The last of my osprey morph asserted itself as Rachel began to grow fur and shrink. Ax dropped his gun and began to sprout feathers of his own. Then Rachel was about the size of a rabbit, Tobias said, <That's good enough, Rachel; I'll take it from here,> and swooped in to pick her up in his talons. He ignored her panicked struggling, and carried her out the window.

As one, the rest of us followed him.


	19. Chapter 19

Did we make a difference?

It was hard to be sure, right then. But I had a brief conversation with Ax, the next day. I asked him how many yeerk pools the kandrona we destroyed could support. A Kandrona that size would have a few miles' radius, he said. So the effect wouldn't be seen outside the city. I figured that the massive underground yeerk pool would have to be the only yeerk pool in the city.

But we had no way of knowing whether there were other yeerk pools elsewhere in the world. Other Kandronas. If I were running the yeerk empire, the first place I would've started building was somewhere like China, somewhere with a high population and not that much interaction with the rest of the world. Or in the third world, there they could just pretend to be a new human force for a new dictator and nobody would think it was odd. But it was hard not to be happy about our achievement anyway. What had we done, since becoming Animorphs? Destroyed a freighter. Got a lot of people killed. Embarrassed Visser Three. This was our first real victory.

Rachel must have felt just as happy about it, because that afternoon she declared that she 'wasn't going to make things easy for the yeerks by running off.'

“So we're keeping Xena, Warrior Princess?” Marco asked.

“Oh, yeah. Xena's not done kicking yeerk butt,” she laughed.

A day later, Tobias swooped into my barn. <Rachel's dad isn't a Controller.>

I paused for a moment, until the squirrel in my hands struggled and reminded me what I was doing. I went back to bandaging his torso. “Are you certain?”

<As certain as I can be. We haven't lost sight of him for more than 25 minutes, so unless his yeerk like really quick dips in the pool...>

I didn't ask which other Animorphs he'd gotten to help. “What about while we were storming the tower?”

<You think he went at five in the morning?>

“We were out doing stuff at five in the morning.”

<True. I had Melissa Chapman watch him while we were gone. He slept the whole time.>

“Good. Thanks. That's a load off my mind.”

<Off mine, too. I need to hunt. Later, Cassie.>

“Good luck, Tobias.” I heard him fly away as I put the squirrel back in his cage. I had a lot of planning to do.

The problem with me being an Animorph, the real problem, was that I'm a terrible liar. I'm a firm believer in trying to keep one's knowledge about the world as correct as possible, because we need good information to make good decisions. So I try not to lie to myself, if I can help it. And so I've never really got into the habit of lying to others.

As a guerilla warrior protecting my planet from aliens and shielded only by my secret identity, that was a problem. So far, it hadn't been that much of an issue. Apart from occasionally pretending I was tutoring my fellow Animorphs or lying about staying over at Rachel's place, I mostly got by by just not mentioning anything, and people assumed I was getting on with my life as normal. But this time, I needed to lie.

I needed a script. I could follow a script. I could have all the time in the world to work out what to say so that I wouldn't slip up and say something stupid.

I wrote my lines. I learned my lines. Then I morphed osprey, and went to give Rachel's dad a visit.

He was sitting at his computer in his study. I landed on the windowsill and tapped at the window. The window was open a crack for air, but not enough to fly through. There was flyscreen on it, anyway.

_Tap, tap._

He looked up, and frowned. “Hey there, bird,” he said gently. “Are you lost?”

_Tap, tap._

He walked over and very slowly edged the window further open. “You're certainly tame,” he murmured. “Are you a pet? Did you get out?”

<No. Do not be afraid.> I almost laughed at myself. Those words had seemed so corny when Elfangor and then the Ellimist said them, and here I was using the same line.

He froze. Frowned again. Then he smiled. “Going away prank, huh? I gotta say, this one's pretty creative.” He turned around and started searching the room.

<It is not a hidden microphone,> I informed him. <I am not making any sound.>

He hesitated. “If you're the bird, lift your wings.”

I complied.

“Okay... take a few steps left.”

I ambled left along the windowsill.

He snorted. He didn't believe me yet, not really. That was okay. I could fix that. <Let me in, please.>

“Why?”

<Because we need to talk, and I can't do it out here.>

After a moment, he popped part of the flyscreen out with trembling hands. I ducked under the gap and hopped down to the floor.

<Thank you. I need to show you something. I have to do this because your people are in danger, and I need your help to save them. And for that, I need you to believe me. But please understand that you are not in danger from me. I came here to ask for your help. Do not be afraid.>

“Afraid of the telepathic bird?” he said nervously. “Why would that happen?”

<I am not a bird. I am a shapeshifter. And I am about to prove it.> With that, I focused on my human self. I had to be careful. I couldn't let him recognise me. I wasn't too worried that he'd recognise my mental voice – I'd been practising disguising it – but if he saw Cassie emerge from the bird, that would take some explaining.

So I let my body grow. I let my shoulders move, with a crunch, into a more human position. But when my feathers started to tingle, I stopped the morph – I didn't want to lose those. I kept the lower half of my wings. Kept my beak, although when I felt my eyes change, I allowed it. My legs started to darken and melt into my own brown human skin before I could catch them – thinking fast, I started to morph horse, replacing the skin with dark fur. There I stood, a strange concoction of human, horse and bird; a beaked, feathered humanoid teetering on a pair of horse legs that ended in broad talons.

I wasn't even sure that that was going to work.

<It's alright,> I told the man who had backed into the opposite wall and was staring at me, wide-eyed.

I don't know Rachel's parents very well. But I always thought she took after her hard, busy, straight-talking lawyer mum a lot more than her gentle, timid-looking dad. I was wrong. If her dad was afraid, he didn't show it. He looked a bit disbelieving, sure – who wouldn't? But he stood straight and straightened his collar. “Alright. What are you?”

<An alien.> This is where it got tricky. <We call ourselves andalites.>


	20. Chapter 20

Rachel's dad just kind of stared. It was hard to blame him.

<We came here to defend your planet from alien invaders,> I explained quickly. <Other aliens. They are called yeerks. They are mind-controlling parasites, able to squeeze through a human's ear canal and wrap around their brain to control them. When they do this, they get access to all their thoughts and memories. So they are very, very dangerous. Any time a soldier is captured, all of his secrets belong to the yeerk empire. We intended to fight them off, but... they surprised us. They overran us. A handful of us managed to escape. Our job is to hold the line, to prevent the yeerks from winning the war until reinforcements can arrive.>

“When will that be?”

<A year, maybe two.>

“I can't help you. I'm leaving town...”

<Exactly. You are moving away to work in a large city. That is exactly why we need you. It's not easy, but... sometimes, there is a way to free people from yeerk enslavement. But then what? If we just send them home, they would be recaptured immediately, possibly with dangerous information about us. We need somewhere to send them. Somewhere that they can disappear under a false name, out of the reach of the yeerks.>

“You want me to set up a... a survivor's shelter?”

<Yes. It needn't be large. Rescue is difficult, it is not something that we can do very often. It is unlikely that we would ever send you more than one person at a time, although I suppose it is possible that some may insist on bringing their families.>

“I have daughters, here. Are they...?”

<They are free from the yeerks.> That might be a lie. We were only really certain about Rachel. <And we can keep it that way.>

His gaze sharpened. “Are you saying you'll protect my family?”

<I want to be very clear here. I am not attempting to threaten or force you to help us. We will attempt to protect all civilians, regardless. Whether you help us or not, we will do what we can to protect your daughters. But I will tell you this: I know how easy it is to control humans with hostages. If you agree to help us, we cannot afford you running off to rescue a newly captured daughter from the yeerks. And that means we cannot afford to let the yeerks take them. I will not try to use your daughters against you. I would prefer to keep them out of this equation altogether. But if you help us, we have no choice but to make your daughters' freedom a much higher priority.>

“Then I'll help.”

<This is very dangerous, you realise.>

“I don't care.”

<I will contact you by telephone in a couple of weeks, when you are settled into your new home. I cannot yet be sure when we will have escapees for you.> I let my horse legs melt through human and back to osprey, and started to shrink.

“How can... how can I be sure you're telling the truth about all this?”

<I cannot offer you any more proof. But when you start meeting escapees... they will.> I flapped my way over to the windowsill and crawled under the flyscreen. <Oh, and remember... tell no one. Not even your family. Knowledge is danger. Knowledge makes people a target.> The last of the osprey asserted itself once more, and I flapped away into the sky.

Had I done the right thing?

Rachel would kill me if she knew. It was hard enough to convince her over Melissa. But we had to do what we could to protect our planet, and our species. And a time-controlling alien trying to help us through a labyrinth of rules just might not be enough on its own.

We needed other systems in place. Systems that didn't centre on five kids and an alien cadet.

Systems to stop that big, open yeerk pool in the middle of a conquered city. Systems so that if that did happen, it wouldn't be the end.

It wasn't impossible. We could still slow them. We could still help people. We could still fight.

All of us.


End file.
